The eye, the lip, the cheek, the brow,
The hands stretch'd forth in gladness,
All life, joy, rapture, beauty now;
Then dash'd with infant sadness;
Till, brightening by transition,
Return'd the fairy vision :-

Where are they now?-those smiles, those tears, Thy mother's darling treasure?

She sees them still, and still she hears

Thy tones of pain or pleasure,

To her quick pulse revealing
Unutterable feeling.

Hush'd in a moment on her breast,
Life, at the well-spring drinking;
Then cradled on her lap to rest,
In rosy slumber sinking,

Thy dreams-no thought can guess them;
And mine-no tongue express them.

For then this waking eye could see,

In many a vain vagary,

The things that never were to be,

Imaginations airy;

Fond hopes that mothers cherish,
Like still-born babes to perish.

Mine perish'd on thy early bier;
No,-changed to forms more glorious,
They flourish in a higher sphere,
O'er time and death victorious;

Yet would these arms have chain'd thee, And long from heaven detain'd thee.

Sarah! my last, my youngest love,
The crown of every other !

Though thou art born in heaven above,
I am thine only Mother,

Nor will affection let me

Believe thou canst forget me.

Then, thou in heaven and I on earth,

May this one hope delight us,

That thou wilt hail my second birth,

When death shall re-unite us,

Where worlds no more can sever

Parent and child for ever.

SPRING.

MARY HOWITT.

THE Spring-she is a blessed thing!
She is the mother of the flowers;
She is the mate of birds and bees,

The partner of their revelries,

Our star of hope through wintry hours.

The many children, when they see
Her coming, by the budding thorn,

They leap upon the cottage floor,
They shout beside the cottage door,

And run to meet her night and morn.

They are soonest with her in the woods,
Peeping, the wither'd leaves among,
To find the earliest fragrant thing
That dares from the cold earth to spring,
Or catch the earliest wild-bird's song.

The little brooks run on in light,
As if they had a chase of mirth;
The skies are blue, the air is balm;
Our very hearts have caught the charm
That sheds a beauty over earth.

The aged man is in the field.

The maiden 'mong her garden flowers; The sons of sorrow and distress

Are wandering in forgetfulness

Of wants that fret and care that lowers.

She comes with more than present good-
With joys to store for future years,
From which, in striving crowds apart,
The bowed in spirit, bruised in heart,
May glean up hope with grateful tears.

Up-let us to the fields away,

And breathe the fresh and balmy air: The bird is building in the tree,

The flower has opened to the bee,

And health and love and peace are there.

THE DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.

A. A. WATTS.

My sweet one, my sweet one, the tears were in my

eyes

When first I clasp'd thee to my heart, and heard thy feeble cries;

For I thought of all that I had borne as I bent me down to kiss

Thy cherry lips and sunny brow, my first-born bud

of bliss!

I turn'd to many a wither'd hope, to years of grief

and pain,

And the cruel wrongs of a bitter world flash'd o'er my boding brain;

I thought of friends grown worse than cold, of persecuting foes,

And I ask'd of Heaven, if ills like these must mar thy youth's repose.

I gazed upon thy quiet face-half blinded by my

tears

Till gleams of bliss, unfelt before, came brightening on my fears,

Sweet rays of hope that fairer shone 'mid the clouds of gloom that bound them,

As stars dart down their loveliest light when midnight skies are round them.

My sweet one, my sweet one, thy life's brief hour

is o'er,

And a father's anxious fears for thee can fever me

no more;

And for the hopes, the sun-bright hopes, that blossom'd at thy birth,

They too have fled, to prove how frail are cherish'd things of earth!

'Tis true that thou wert young, my child, but though brief thy span below,

To me it was a little age of agony and woe;

For from thy first faint dawn of life thy cheek began to fade,

And my heart had scarce thy welcome breathed ere my hopes were wrapp'd in shade.

Oh the child, in its hours of health and bloom, that is dear as thou wert then,

Grows far more prized-more fondly loved-in sickness and in pain;

And thus 'twas thine to prove, dear babe, when every hope was lost,

Ten times more precious to my soul, for all that thou hadst cost!

Cradled in thy fair mother's arms, we watch'd thee, day by day,

Pale, like the second bow of Heaven, as gently waste

away;

And, sick with dark foreboding fears, we dared not breathe aloud,