A BUTTERFLY AT A CHILD'S GRAVE.
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
A BUTTERFLY basked on an infant's grave,
Where a lily had chanced to grow;
Why art thou here with thy gaudy dye,
Where she of the bright and the sparkling eye
Must sleep in the churchyard low?
Then it lightly soared through the sunny air,
And spoke from its shining track:
I was a worm till I won my wings,
And she whom thou mourn'st, like a seraph sings
Wouldst thou call the blest one back?
WHILE MAKING A GRAVE FOR A FIRST CHILD, BORN DEAD.
ROOM, gentle flowers! my child would pass to heaven!
Ye looked not for her yet with your soft eyes,
O, watchful ushers at Death's narrow door!
But lo! while you delay to let her forth,
Angels, beyond, stay for her! One long kiss
From lips all pale with agony, and tears,
Wrung after anguish had dried up with fire
The eyes that wept them, were the cup of life
Held as a welcome to her. Weep, O, mother!
But not that from this cup of bitterness
A cherub of the sky has turned away.
One look upon her face ere she depart!
My daughter! it is soon to let thee go!
My daughter! with thy birth has gushed a spring
I knew not of; filling my heart with tears,
And turning with strange tenderness to thee!
A love-O, GOD, it seems so-which must flow
Far as thou fleest, and 'twixt Heaven and me,
Henceforward, be a sweet and yearning chain,
Drawing me after thee! And so farewell!
'Tis a harsh world in which affection knows
No place to treasure up its loved and lost
But the lone grave! Thou, who so late was sleep-
Warm in the close folds of a mother's heart,
Scarce from her breast a single pulse receiving,
But it was sent thee with some tender thought-
How can I leave thee here! Alas, for man!
The herb in its humility may fall,
And waste into the bright and genial air,
While we, by hands that ministered in life
Nothing but love to us, are thrust away,
The earth thrown in upon our just cold bosoms,
And the warm sunshine trodden out forever!
Yet have I chosen for thy grave, my child,
A bank where I have lain in summer hours,
And thought how little it would seem like death
To sleep amid such loveliness. The brook
Tripping with laughter down the rocky steps
That lead us to thy bed, would still trip on,
Breaking the dread hush of the mourners gone;
The birds are never silent that build here,
Trying to sing down the more vocal waters;
The slope is beautiful with moss and flowers;
And, far below, seen under arching leaves,
Glitters the warm sun on the village spire,
Pointing the living after thee. And this
Seems like a comfort, and, replacing now
The flowers that have made room for thee, I go
To whisper the same peace to her who lies.
Robbed of her child, and lonely. 'Tis the work
Of many a dark hour, and of many a prayer,
To bring the heart back from an infant gone!
Hope must give o'er, and busy fancy blot
Its images from all the silent rooms,
And every sight and sound familiar to her
Undo its sweetest link; and so, at last,
The fountain that, once loosed, must flow forever,
Will hide and waste in silence. When the smile
Steals to her pallid lip again, and spring
Wakens its buds above thee, we will come,
And, standing by thy music-haunted grave,
Look on each other cheerfully, and say,
A child that we have loved is gone to heaven,
And by this gate of flowers she passed away!
THE VOICE OF RAMA.
GEO. W. DOANE.
"Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted."
HEARD ye, from Rama's ruined walls,
That voice of bitter weeping!-
Is it the moan of fettered slave,
His watch of sorrow keeping?
Heard ye from Rama's wasted plains
That cry of lamentation!
Is it the wail of ISRAEL'S sons,
For Salem's devastation?
Ah, no-a sorer ill than chains
That bitter wail is waking,
And deeper woe than Salem's fall
That tortured heart is breaking:
'Tis RACHEL, of her sons bereft,
Who lifts that voice of weeping;
And childless are the eyes that there
Their watch of grief are keeping.
O! who shall tell what fearful pangs
That mother's heart are rending,
As o'er her infant's little grave
Her wasted form is bending;
From many an eye that weeps to-day
Delight may beam to-morrow;
But she her precious babe is not!
And what remains but sorrow?
Bereaved one! I may not chide
Thy tears and bitter sobbing
Weep on-'t will cool that burning brow,
And still that bosom's throbbing:
But be not thine such grief as theirs
To whom no hope is given
Snatched from the world, its sins and snares,
Thy infant rests in heaven.
LINES ON PASSING THE GRAVE OF MY SISTER.
ON yonder shore, on yonder shore,
Now verdant with the depths of shade, Beneath the white-armed sycamore, There is a little infant laid.
Forgive this tear. A brother weeps.— 'Tis there the faded floweret sleeps.
She sleeps alone, she sleeps alone,
And summer's forests o'er her wave;
And sighing winds at autumn moan
Around the little stranger's grave,
As though they murmured at the fate
Of one so lone and desolate.
In sounds that seem like sorrow's own,
Their funeral dirges faintly creep;
Then, deepening to an organ tone,
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