into the fire; what is the best color for a coat, black, white, red or grey, and whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean, with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long a continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent." Kirke White wrote verses to his mother. Moore, in a poem addressed to his mother, compares his affections to the branches of the Banyan tree, that turn again to the soil from which they sprung. Milton addressed Latin verses to his father, in which he gratefully thanks him for his education. But, perhaps, there can be found no filial tribute which has more feeling and poetry than the lines of Pope : Me let the tender office long engage To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death ; And keep awhile one parent from the sky. We may conclude this subject with one of the most striking examples of filial piety to be found in history; that of the daughter who suckled a parent in prison under sentence of starvation, with her own milk. Pliny relates the circumstance of a Temple, dedicated to Filial Piety, being erected on the occasion. Lord Byron describes the scene— An old man, and a female young and fair, The blood is nectar :-but what doth she there With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare? Lo! here youth offers to old age the food, The milk of its own gift :-it is her Sire 1557 While in those warm and lovely veins the fire Of health and holy feeling can provide Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher Than Egypt's river:—from that gentle side Drink,drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide. The starry fable of the milky way And sacred nature triumphs more in this FINIS. |