Her little robes, that once with woman's pride
I wrought, as if there were a need to deck
What God hath made so beautiful. I start,

Half fancying from her empty crib there comes

A restless sound, and breathe the accustomed words "Hush! Hush thee, dearest." Then I bend and weepAs though it were a sin to speak to one

Whose home is with the angels.

Gone to God!

And yet I wish I had not seen the pang
That wrung her features, nor the ghastly white
Settling around her lips. I would that Heaven
Had taken its own, like some transplanted flower,
Blooming in all its freshness.

Gone to God!

Be still, my heart! what could a mother's prayer,

In all the wildest ecstacies of hope,

Ask for its darling like the bliss of Heaven?

13*

BARZILLAI THE GILEADITE.

"Let me be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother." 2 SAMUEL, Xix., 37.

SON of Jesse!-let me go,

Why should princely honors stay me?—

Where the streams of Gilead flow,

Where the light first met mine eye,

Thither would I turn and die ;—

Where my parent's ashes lie,

King of Israel!-bid them lay me.

Bury me near my sire revered,

Whose feet in righteous paths so firmly trod,
Who early taught my soul with awe
To heed the Prophets and the Law,
And to my infant heart appeared

Majestic as a God:

Oh! when his sacred dust

The cerements of the tomb shall burst,

Might I be worthy at his feet to rise,

To yonder blissful skies,

Where angel-hosts resplendent shine,

Jehovah!-Lord of Hosts, the glory shall be thine.

Cold age upon my breast

Hath shed a frost like death,

The wine-cup hath no zest,
The rose no fragrant breath;
Music from my ear hath fled,

Yet still one sweet tone lingereth there,

The blessing that my mother shed

Upon my evening prayer.

Dim is my wasted eye

To all that beauty brings,

The brow of grace—the form of symmetry

Are half-forgotten things;—

Yet one bright hue is vivid still,

A mother's holy smile, that soothed my sharpest ill.

Memory, with traitor-tread

Methinks, doth steal away

Treasures that the mind had laid

Up for a wintry day.

Images of sacred power,

Cherished deep in passion's hour,

Faintly now my bosom stir,

Good and evil like a dream

Half obscured and shadowy seem,

Yet with a changeless love my soul remembereth her,

Yea-it remembereth her:

Close by her blessed side, make ye my sepulchre.