I knew those marble lips to mine
Should never more be pressed,
And floods of feeling, undefined,
Rolled wildly o'er my breast;
Low, stifled sounds, and dusky forms,
Seemed moving in the gloom,
As if death's dark array were come,
To bear thee to the tomb.

And when I could not keep the tear From gathering in my eye,

Thy little hands pressed gently mine,
In token of reply;

To ask one more exchange of love,
Thy look was upward cast,
And in that long and burning kiss
Thy happy spirit passed.

I never trusted to have lived
To bid farewell to thee,
And almost said, in agony,
It ought not so to be;

I hoped that thou within the grave
My weary head shouldst lay,
And live, beloved, when I was gone,
For many a happy day.

With trembling hand, I vainly tried

Thy dying eyes to close;

And almost envied, in that hour,
Thy calm and deep repose;
For I was left in loneliness,
With pain and grief oppressed,
And thou wast with the sainted,
Where the weary are at rest.

Yes, I am sad and weary now:
But let me not repine,
Because a spirit, loved so well,

Is earlier blessed than mine;
My faith may darken as it will,
I shall not much deplore,

Since thou art where the ills of life
Can never reach thee more.

DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.

WILLIS G. CLARK.

YOUNG mother, he is gone!

His dimpled cheek no more will touch thy breast ; No more the music-tone

Float from his lips, to thine all fondly pressed; His smile and happy laugh are lost to thee: Earth must his mother and his pillow be.

His was the morning hour,

And he hath passed in beauty from the day,
A bud, not yet a flower,

Torn, in its sweetness, from the parent spray;

The death-wind swept him to his soft repose,
As frost, in spring-time, blights the early rose.

Never on earth again

Will his rich accents charm thy listening ear,
Like some Æolian strain,

Breathing at eventide serene and clear;
His voice is choked in dust, and on his eyes
The unbroken seal of peace and silence lies.

And from thy yearning heart,

Whose inmost core was warm with love for him,
A gladness must depart,

And those kind eyes with many tears be dim;
While lonely memories, an unceasing train,
Will turn the raptures of the past to pain.

Yet, mourner, while the day

*Rolls like the darkness of a funeral by,
And hope forbids one ray

To stream athwart the grief-discolored sky;
There breaks upon thy sorrow's evening gloom
A trembling lustre from beyond the tomb.

'Tis from the better land!

There, bathed in radiance that around them springs,
Thy loved one's wings expand;

As with the choiring cherubim he sings,
And all the glory of that God can see,

Who said, on earth, to children, "Come to me."

Mother, thy child is blessed:

And though his presence may be lost to thee,
And vacant leave thy breast,

And missed, a sweet load, from thy parent knee; Though tones familiar from thine ear have passed, Thou 'It meet thy first-born with his Lord at last.

And the rose faded.

Forth from those blue eyes

There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt

Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound The silken fringes of those curtaining lids Forever. There had been a murmuring sound

With which the babe would claim its mother's

ear,

Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set

The seal of silence. But there beamed a smile,
So fixed, so holy, from that cherub brow,

Death gazed, and left it there. He dared not steal
The signet-ring of heaven.

TO AN INFANT IN HEAVEN.

THOMAS WARD.

THOU bright and star-like spirit!
That, in my visions wild,

I see 'mid heaven's seraphic host-
O! canst thou be my child?

My grief is quenched in wonder,
And pride arrests my sighs;
A branch from this unworthy stock
Now blossoms in the skies.

Our hopes of thee were lofty,
But have we cause to grieve?
O! could our fondest, proudest wish
A nobler fate conceive?

The little weeper, tearless,

The sinner, snatched from sin; The babe, to more than manhood grown, Ere childhood did begin.

And I, thy earthly teacher,

Would blush thy powers to see;

Thou art to me a parent now,

And I, a child to thee!

Thy brain, so uninstructed
While in this lowly state,