THE DEPARTED CHILD'S SPIRIT TO ITS PARENTS. KIND parents! why those tears? And why those bursting sighs; Your little loved one's eyes. The shades of eve, you know, Yet long before the night The home I left below, A better had I found. So rapidly the soul Unbodied takes its flight, Did not you, mother, see That bright celestial band They let me stay awhile, To hear my mother pray, And then to heaven we flew The cherubs led the way; But my 'rapt spirit smil'd Father! I never knew 'Twas such a place as this; That heaven you told me of, Was quite so full of bliss. Oh! there is music here! The softest, sweetest strains Float constantly along O'er these ethereal plains. List! Mother-Father, list! And shall I tell you who In this most glorious place? Grandfather-honoured name! Those hoary hairs no more His trembling voice is chang'd; And Mary! sister's here, She has a cherub's wingCan reach their loftiest flights, Their noblest anthems sing. Dear parents! weep no more Oh! live and serve the Lord, Then when you've done with earth, We'll welcome you above. (Please to excuse if, at this time, there should chance to be more true stories than one.) MANY a good time that joyful expression has sounded in my ears. But, first of all, let me observe this, that most people, the great and the small, seem to have a vast notion about seeing the great folks! I have been told of a sweep-boy who was one day boasting that a noble lord spoke to him. "Get out of the way you dog," was the noble lord's speech to the boy; and this seems to have made our young master about as happy as the dog himself when he bears his tail in air. Again, one fine summer's day, the word went round, in the town of Weymouth, that King George the Third was come! and this set the bells ringing, and nearly all the people running. An elderly gentleman, who was walking in a by-lane, met a woman from the hay-field, who was running and almost breathless. "Where are you going, my good woman, in such mighty haste ?" said the gentleman. 66 Oh, don't bother me now," said the woman, "going to see the king." It was the king himself! who now moved on, 66 shaking himself with laughter, at the woman's uncourtly "bother," whilst she ran, and ran, all the contrary way to see him. Yet again, when I was a lad, there was a young fellow who enlisted for a soldier, and he would have it that his only motive was that he should "see the king." I saw his widowed mother and his two sisters, in the street, pulling and hauling our Dick" along, with many tears and entreaties, as they urged him to go pay the "smart," and return with them back to his "home, sweet home," again. But no, “Dick” had but one answer for all, which he many times repeated,—“I shall see the king." "Foolish, and heartless youth," you will say, "what good would it do him were he to see twenty kings in a day, compared with the society of his own mother and sisters ?" Ah! but I judge that he never did see the king, after all; although he had to see a good many of the king's enemies, and fight them too; but he never saw his poor mother and sisters again; and, I believe, he was never afterwards heard of. So much for people's anxiety to see the great folks, and so much especially for our poor unwise Dick, and his project of "seeing the king." But, about the Queen! True. Well, I cannot say, with our good Mr. Editor, that I ever saw King George the Third; but I saw King George the Fourth, and I saw William the Fourth and his Queen; and I dare say I could relate a good long story about them; only I am now to say something about that great little personage who is so much talked about at present, namely, her most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria the first. But, "first of all," (once more!) I was one day dining with a gentleman at the West-end, whose business led him sometimes to visit the "great folks," and he told me about a very young lady who had a very great will of her own, and who, at one time, refused to say ta, or thank ye, to the servant who had brought her something, so her mother resolved that she should stand in the corner till she could find her tongue. Who could that be? Now I will not say that that little maid was the Queen, for this reason, that she was not queen just then! However, her good mother thought that, queen or no queen, it would never do for a little maid to be mistress and, no doubt, she would especially consider it would be a good thing that one who was to rule over millions should herself, first of all, learn to obey. By this time the daughter may be of the same mind with her mother, for she is a mother herself now. Something I was going to say, and then bid good bye. Oh well. One fine evening in the summer of 1837, I was ascending a hill near London, and, opposite an inn, I observed a carriage, a very fine carriage, with some outriders, near to which was a group of persons attired in deep mourning—a young lady and gentleman, with a matronly lady; and no one it appeared knew who or what they were. I passed on; but meeting with a friend, "Well, sir," said he, "you have seen the Queen!" It was the Queen whom I had been looking at! Yes, the Queen, with the royal mother and a young German prince; and I had never called out "the Queen!" nor so much as touched my hat! It was at a period before the Queen's features had become familiar to the public eye; and why should not the great folks, for once, enjoy the cool breeze of the evening without being annoyed by the dust and din of a bustling multitude of idle gazers? I found that the cavalcade, on arriving at a sharp descent of the hill, had felt an alarm; the party alighted; the landlord of the inn was all attention, and the wheel being locked with an iron chain, royalty, for once, had to journey for some space on foot; and thus it was that the Sovereign of this mighty empire was rescued from alarm and danger. Now please to rememberno one is to suppose that the Queen would allow this innkeeper to be, at all, a loser by the event. True |