I have no pain, dear mother, now, but O! I am so dry, Just moisten poor Jim's lips again, and, mother, don't you cry." With gentle, trembling haste she held the liquid to his lip; He smiled to thank her as he took each little, tiny sip. "Tell father, when he comes from work, I said goodnight to him, And, mother, now I'll go to sleep." Alas! poor little Jim! She knew that he was dying; that the child she loved so dear, And oh! to see the briny tears fast hurrying down her cheek, As she offered up the prayer, in thought, she was afraid to speak, Lest she might waken one she loved far better than her life; For she had all a mother's heart - had that poor collier's wife. With hands uplifted, see, she kneels beside the sufferer's bed, And prays that He would spare her boy, and take herself instead. She gets her answer from the child: soft fall the words from him, "Mother, the angels do so smile, and beckon little Jim, And often in those grand old woods And the springin' corn, and the bright May morn LADY DUFFERIN. HE loves and animosities of youth, where are they? Swept away like the camps that had been pitched in the sandy bed of the river. THE OLD SEXTON. IGH to a grave that was newly made. spade; "Many are with me, yet I'm alone; I'm King of the Dead, and I make my throne Come they from cottage, or come they from hall, May they loiter in pleasure, or toilfully spin, I gather them in-I gather them in. "I gather them in, and their final rest Is here, down here, in the earth's dark breast! ” Will be heard o'er the last trump's dreadful din: PARK BENJAMIN. THE OLD ARM-CHAIR. LOVE it-I love it, and who shall dare I've bedewed it with tears, and embalmed it with sighs; "Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart, In childhood's hour I lingered near I sat and watched her many a day, When her eyes grew dim and her locks were gray, 'Tis past! 'tis past! but I gaze on it now With quivering breath and throbbing brow: "Twas there she nursed me-'twas there she died, And memory flowed with lava tide Say it is folly, and deem me weak, While the scalding tears run down my cheek. ELIZA COOK. MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN CHEN chill November's surly blast X Made fields and forests bare, One evening, as I wandered forth I spied a man whose aged step His face was furrowed o'er with years, "Young stranger, whither wanderest thou?" Began the reverend sage; "Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, Or youthful pleasures rage? Or haply, prest with cares and woes, To wander forth, with me, to mourn HREE fishers went sailing out into the west, And the children stood watching them out of the town; For men must work, and women must weep, Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down; They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown. But men must work, and women must weep, Three corpses lay out on the shining sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands For those who will never come home to the town; For men must work, and women must weep, And the sooner it 's over, the sooner to sleep; And good-by to the bar and its moaning. CHARLES KINGSLEY. |