While angels the new comer
Wrap a still smile around!
Oh, in the blessed psalm now
His happy voice he tries,
Spreading a thicker palm bough
Than other's o'er his eyes;
Yet still in all the singing,
Thinks haply of thy song,
Which in his life's first springing,
Sang to him all night long,
And wishes it beside him,
With hissing lips, that cool
And soft did over glide him,
To make the sweetness full.
Look up, O mournful mother,
Thy blind boy walks in light!
Ye wait for one another

Before God's infinite!

But thou art now the darkest,
Thou mother left below-
Thou, the soul-blind, thou markest,

Content that it be so;

Until ye two give meeting

Where the great heaven-gate is,

And he shall lead thy feet in,

As once thou ledest his.

Wait on, thou mournful mother!

ELIZABETH BARRETT.

THE DYING CHILD.

117

THE DYING CHILD.

AH! look thy last, fond mother!
On the beauty of that brow!
For Death's cold hand is passing o'er
Its marble stillness now.

Those silken eyelids weighing down
Upon the glazed eye,

Are telling to thine aching heart
The lovely one must die!

Yes! mother of the dying one,
The beautiful must go!

The pallid cheek, and fading eye,
And trembling lip of snow-
Are signets from the hand of death,
When unseen angels come,

To bear the young and beautiful
To their own happy home.

That soft white hand within thine own
May never more entwine

Their arms around the mother's neck,

Like tendrils of the vine;

Those still cold fingers never more,

Along thy forehead fair,

Shall dally with the raven curls
That cluster thickly there.

The flashes of its speaking eye,
The music of its mirth,

Shall never more make glad the hearts
Around the parent's hearth.
Then look thy last, fond mother,
For the earth shall be above,
And curtain up that sleeping one-
The first-born of thy love!

But let thy burning thoughts go forth, pray that thou mayst meet

And

That sinless one, when worlds shall bow
Before the judgment seat;

And pray, that when the wing of death
Is shadowed on thy brow,

Thy soul may be beside the one
That sleepeth near thee now.

ANONYMOUS.

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL.

119

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL.

Он, mother! I've been with an angel to-day;
I was out all alone in the forest at play,
Chasing the butterflies, watching the bees,
And hearing the woodpeckers tapping the trees.

So I played and I played, till so weary I grew,
And I sat down to rest 'neath the shade of a yew;
While the birds sang so sweetly, high up in its

top,

I held my breath, mother, for fear they would stop.

There a long time I sat, looking up in the sky, And watching the clouds that went hurrying by ; When I heard a voice calling, just over my head, That sounded as if, "Come up, brother!" it said.

When there, right up over the top of the tree,
Oh, mother! an angel was beckoning to me,
And "brother," once more,

cried,

66

oh, brother!" he

And flew on bright pinions close down by my side.

And mother, oh never was being so bright, As the one that then beamed on my wondering sight,

His face was as fair as the delicate shell,
His hair down his shoulders in fair ringlets fell.

His eyes resting on me, so melting with love,
Were as soft and as mild as the eyes of a dove;
And somehow, dear mother, I felt not afraid
As his hand on my brow he caressingly laid,

And whispering softly and gently to me, "Come, brother, the angels are waiting for thee!" And then on my forehead he tenderly pressed Such kisses-oh, mother, they thrilled through my breast.

And swiftly as lightning leaps down from on high, When the chariot of God rolls along the black sky, While his breath floating round me, as soft as the breeze

That played with my tresses and rustled the trees.

At last on my head a deep blessing he pouredThen plumed his bright wings, and upward he soared;

And up, up he went through the blue sky so farHe seemed to float there like a glittering star.

Yet still my eyes followed his radiant flight,
Till, lost in the azure, he passed from my sight;