The Sculptured Children

ON CHANTREY'S MONUMENT AT LICHFIELD.

BY MRS HEMANS.

"Thus lay

The gentle babes, thus girdling one another

Within their alabaster innocent arms."-SHAKSPEARE.

AIR images of sleep!

FAIR

Hallow'd, and soft, and deep;

On whose calm lids the dreamy quiet lies,

Like moonlight on shut bells

of flowers in mossy dells,

Fill'd with the hush of night and summer skies;

How many hearts have felt

Your silent beauty melt

Their strength to gushing tenderness away!

How many sudden tears,

From depths of buried years

All freshly bursting, have confess'd your sway!

How many eyes will shed

Still, o'er your marble bec

Such drops, from Memory's troubled fountains wrung!

While Hope hath blights to bear,

While love breathes mortal air,

While roses perish ere to glory sprung.

The Sculptured Children.

Yet, from a voiceless home,

If some sad mother come

To bend and linger o'er your lovely rest;
As o'er the cheek's warm glow,

And the soft breathings low

Of babes that grew and faded on her breast;

If then the dovelike tone
Of those faint murmurs gone,
O'er her sick sense too piercingly return;
If for the soft bright hair,

And brow and bosom fair,

And life, now dust, her soul too deeply yearn;

Oh, gentle forms entwined

Like tendrils which the wind
May wave, so clasp'd, but never can unlink;
Send from your calm profound

A still small voice, a sound
Of hope, forbidding that lone heart to sink.

By all the pure meek mind

In your pale beauty shrined,

By childhood's love—too bright a bloom to die!
O'er her worn spirit shed,

O fairest, holiest dead!

The Faith, Trust, Light, of Immortality!

347

My Own Fireside.

BY ALARIC A. WATTS.

ET others seek for empty joys,

LET

At ball, or concert, rout, or play; Whilst, far from fashion's idle noise, Her gilded domes, and trappings gay. I wile the wintry eve away,—

'Twixt book and lute the hours divide; And marvel how I e'er could stray From thee—my own Fireside!

My own Fireside! Those simple words
Can bid the sweetest dreams arise;
Awaken feeling's tenderest chords,
And fill with tears of joy my eyes!
What is there my wild heart can prize,
That doth not in thy sphere abide,
Haunt of my home-bred sympathies,
My own-my own Fireside!

A gentle form is near me now;

A small white hand is clasp'd in mîne ;

I gaze upon her placid brow,

And ask what joys can equal thine!

A babe, whose beauty 's half divine,

In sleep its mother's eyes doth hide:— Where may love seek a fitter shrine, Than thou-my own Fireside?

My Own Fireside.

What care I for the sullen roar

Of winds without, that ravage earth; It doth but bid me prize the more,

The shelter of thy hallow'd hearth; To thoughts of quiet bliss give birth : Then let the churlish tempest chide, It cannot check the blameless mirth That glads my own Fireside.

My refuge ever from the storm

Of this world's passion, strife, and care;
Though thunder clouds the sky deform,
Their fury cannot reach me there.
There all is cheerful, calm, and fair,

Wrath, Malice, Envy, Strife, or Pride,

Hath never made its hated lair
By thee-my own Fireside!

Thy precincts are a charmèd ring,

Where no harsh feeling dares intrude;
Where life's vexations lose their sting;
Where even grief is half subdued:
And Peace, the halcyon, loves to brood.
Then, let the pamper'd fool deride,
I'll pay my debt of gratitude

To thee-my own Fireside!

Shrine of my household deities!

Fair scene of my home's unsullied joys! To thee my burthen'd spirit flies,

When fortune frowns, or care annoys:

Thine is the bliss that never cloys;

The smile whose truth hath oft been tried;

What, then, are this world's tinsel toys
To thee-my own Fireside?

349

Oh, may the yearnings, fond and sweet,
That bid my thoughts be all of thee,
Thus ever guide my wandering feet
To thy heart-soothing sanctuary!
Whate'er my future years may be;
Let joy or grief my fate betide;
Be still an Eden bright to me,
My own-MY OWN FIRESIDE!

The Bugle.

BY GRENVILLE MELLEN.

"But still the dingle's hollow throat
Prolong'd the swelling bugle note,
The owlets started from their dream,
The eagles answer'd with their scream;
Round and around the sounds were cast,
Till echo seem'd an answering blast."

-Lady of the Lake.

OH! wild enchanting horn!

Whose music up the deep and dewy air Swells to the clouds, and calls on Echo there, Till a new melody is born.

Wake, wake again !—the night

Is bending from her throne of beauty down, With still stars burning on her azure crown, Intense and eloquently bright.