Wail for Dædalus! awful Voices

From earth's deep centre mankind appal. Seldom ye sound, and then Death rejoices: For he knows that then the Mightiest fall.

14

DAVID MACBETH MOIR.

CASA WAPPY.

THE CHILD'S PET NAME, CHOSEN BY HIMSELF.

AND hast thou sought thy heavenly home, Our fond, dear boy,

The realms where sorrow dare not come,

Where life is joy?

Pure at thy death as at thy birth,

Thy spirit caught no taint from earth;
Even by its bliss we mete our dearth,
Casa Wappy!

Despair was in our last farewell,
As closed thine eye;
Tears of our anguish may not tell

When thou didst die;

Words may not paint our grief for thee;
Sighs are but bubbles on the sea
Of our unfathomed agony;

Casa Wappy!

So dear to us thou wert, thou art
Even less thine own self, than a part
Of mine, and of thy mother's heart,
Casa Wappy!

Thy bright, brief day knew no decline
'T was cloudless joy;

Sunrise and night alone were thine,
Beloved boy!

This moon beheld thee blithe and gay;
That found thee prostrate in decay;
And ere a third shone, clay was clay,
Casa Wappy!

Gem of our hearth, our household pride,
Earth's undefiled,

Could love have saved, thou hadst not died,
Our dear, sweet child!

Humbly we bow to Fate's decree;

Yet had we hoped that Time should see
Thee mourn for us, not us for thee,
Casa Wappy!

Do what I may, go where I will,
Thou meet'st my sight;

There dost thou glide before me still-
A form of light!

I feel thy breath upon my cheek -
I see thee smile, I hear thee speak —
Till oh! my heart is like to break,
Casa Wappy!

Methinks thou smil'st before me now,
With glance of stealth;

The hair thrown back from thy full brow
In buoyant health;

-

I see thine eyes' deep violet light -
Thy dimpled cheek carnationed bright —
Thy clasping arms so round and white —
Casa Wappy!

The nursery shows thy pictured wall,

Thy batthy bow

Thy cloak and bonnet — club and ball;
But where art thou?

A corner holds thine empty chair;
Thy playthings, idly scattered there,
But speak to us of our despair,
Casa Wappy!

Even to the last, thy every word

To glad to grieve

Was sweet, as sweetest song of bird
On Summer's eve;

In outward beauty undecayed,

Death o'er thy spirit cast no shade,
And, like the rainbow, thou didst fade,
Casa Wappy!

We mourn for thee, when blind, blank night
The chamber fills;

We pine for thee, when morn's first light
Reddens the hills;

The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea,

All to the wall-flower and wild-pea

Are changed; we saw the world thro' thee, Casa Wappy!

And though, perchance, a smile may gleam
Of casual mirth,

It doth not own, whate'er may seem,
An inward birth;

We miss thy small step on the stair;
We miss thee at thine evening prayer ;
All day we miss thee, everywhere, -
Casa Wappy!

Snows muffled earth when thou didst go, In life's spring-bloom,

Down to the appointed house below,

The silent tomb.

But now the green leaves of the tree,
The cuckoo, and "the busy bee,'

Return,

but with them bring not thee, Casa Wappy!

'Tis so; but can it be while flowers

Man's doom, in death that we and ours For aye remain ?

O, can it be, that o'er the grave

The grass renewed should yearly wave, Yet God forget our child to save? – Casa Wappy!

It cannot be; for were it so

Thus man could die,

Life were a mockery, thought were woe,

And truth a lie;

Heaven were a coinage of the brain;

Religion frenzy, virtue vain,

And all our hopes to meet again,
Casa Wappy!

Then be to us, O dear, lost child!
With beam of love,

A star, death's uncongenial wild
Smiling above!

Soon, soon thy little feet have trod
The skyward path, the seraph's road,
That led thee back from man to God,
Casa Wappy!