Yet cease, my soul! oh, hush this vain lamenting,
Earth's anguish will not alter heaven's decree;
In that calm world whose peopling is of angels,
Those I called mine, still live, and wait for me,
They cannot re-descend where I lament them;
My earth-bound grief no sorrowing angel shares;
And in their peaceful and immortal dwelling,
Nothing of me can enter-but my prayers!
If this be so then, that I may be near them,
Let me still pray unmurmuring night and day:
God lifts us gently to his world of glory,

Lest in our wayward hearts we should forget Him,
And forfeit so the mansion of our rest;

He leads our dear ones forth, and bids us seek them In a far distant home among the blest;

So we have guides to Heaven's eternal city;

And when our wandering feet would backward stray, The faces of our dead arise in brightness,

And fondly beckon to the holier way.—Mrs. Norton.

F

ON SEEING A DECEASED INFANT.

And this is death! how cold and still
And yet how lovely it appears!
Too cold to let the gazer smile,
And yet too beautiful for tears.
The sparkling eye no more is bright,
The cheek has lost its rose-like red;
And yet it is with strange delight

I stand and gaze upon the dead.

But when I see the fair wide brow,
Half shaded by the silken hair
That never looked so fair as now,

When life and health were laughing there;

I wonder not that grief should swell
So widely upward in the breast,
And that strong passion once repel,
That need not, cannot be suppress'd.

I wonder not that parents' eyes

In gazing thus grow cold and dim, That burning tears and aching sighs

Are blended with the funeral hymn ;

The spirit hath an earthly part,

That weeps when earthly pleasure flies, And earth would scorn the frozen heart That melts not when the infant dies.

And yet why mourn? that deep repose
Shall never more be broke by pain;
Those lips no more in sighs unclose,
Those eyes shall never weep again :
For think not that the blushing flower
Shall wither in the churchyard sod,
'Twas made to gild an angel's bower
Within the Paradise of God.

Once more I

gaze and swift and far The clouds of death in sorrow fly, I see thee like a new-born star,

Move up thy pathway in the sky; The star hath rays serene, and bright, But cold and pale compared with thine, For thy orb shines with heavenly light,

With beams unfading and divine.

Then let the burthen'd heart be free,

The tears of sorrow all be shed, And parents calmly bend to see

The mournful beauty of the dead : Thrice happy-that their infant bears

To heaven no darkening stains of sin; And only breathed life's morning airs Before its noon-day storms begin.

Farewell! I shall not soon forget!
Although thy heart hath ceased to beat,

My memory warmly treasures yet,

Thy features calm and mildly sweet.

But no, that look is not the last,

We yet may meet where Seraphs dwell, Where love no more deplores the past,

Nor breathes that withering word-Farewell.

Peabody.

Even such an awful soothing calm

We sometimes see alight

On Christian mourners, while they wait In silence, by some Churchyard gate, Their summons to the holy rite.

And such the tones of love, which break The stillness of that hour,

Quelling th' embitter'd spirit's strife—

"The Resurrection and the Life,

"Am I believe, and die no more."

Unchang'd that voice-and though not yet
The dead sit up and speak,
Answering its call; we gladlier rest
Our darlings on earth's quiet breast,

And our hearts feel they must not break.