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Then as the wondering child would gaze

Into the old man's face,

He told of dark and troublous days,
Defeat, despair, disgrace;

Of Sedgemoor's field—oh, bitter word!
And lone Inchinnan's fatal ford.

And how, through many a weary day,
In want, and woe, and gloom,
A hunted fugitive he lay

The tenant of a tomb,

With one weak girl, so pale and fair,
His ministering spirit there;

How that bold heart and childlike form
Night after night would brave

The blast, the darkness, and the storm,
To seek his lonely cave—

He paused to show with grateful pride
The blushing matron at his side.

THE THREE SONS.

S. M.

I HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years old, With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of gentle mould;

They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways appears, That my child is grave and wise of heart, beyond his childish years.

I cannot say how this may be, I know his face is fair,
And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and serious

air:

I know his heart is kind and fond, I know he loveth me, But loveth yet his mother more, with grateful fervency: But that which others most admire, is the thought which fills his mind,

The food for grave inquiring speech, he everywhere doth find;

Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we together

walk;

He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as children

talk.

Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not on bat or ball,

But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly mimics all:

His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perplext,

With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the next.

He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she teacheth him to pray,

And strange, and sweet, and solemn then, are the words which he will say.

Oh, should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years

like me,

A holier and a wiser man, I trust that he will be;

And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow,

I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him

now.

I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three; I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be, How silver sweet those tones of his, when he prattles on my knee :

I do not think his light blue eye is, like his brother's,

keen,

Nor his brow so full of childish thought, as his hath ever

been;

But his little heart's a fountain pure, of kind and tender

feeling,

And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing.

When he walks with me, the country folk who pass us in the street,

Will speak their joy, and bless my boy, he looks so mild and sweet;

A playfellow is he to all, and yet, with cheerful tone,
Will sing his little song of love, when left to sport alone.
His presence is like sunshine, sent to gladden home and
hearth,

To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all our mirth. Should he grow up to riper years, God grant his heart, may prove,

sweet a home for heavenly grace, as now for earthly love:

And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching eye must dim,

God comfort us for all the love, which we shall lose in him.

I have a son, a third sweet son; his age I cannot tell,

For they reckon not by years and months, where he is gone to dwell.

To us for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles were

given,

And then he bade farewell to earth, and went to live in heaven.

1 cannot tell what form his is, what looks he weareth

now,

Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow.

The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth feel,

Are number'd with the secret things which God will not reveal.

But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest,

Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving

breast.

I know his spirit feels no more, this weary load of flesh, But his sleep is bless'd with endless dreams of joy for ever fresh.

I know the angels fold him close beneath their glittering wings,

And soothe him with a song that breathes of heaven's divinest things.

And trust that we shall meet our babe, (his mother dear and I,)

Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every

eye.

What'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can never

cease;

Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain

peace.

When we think of what our darling is, and what we still must be :

When we muse on that world's perfect bliss, and this world's misery;

When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel this grief

and pain;

Oh! we'd rather lose our other two, than have him here

again.

J. Moultrie.

66

THE SNOW FLAKE.

Now, if I fall, will it be my lot
To be cast in some low and lonely spot,
To melt, and to sink unseen or forgot?
And then will my course be ended ?”
'Twas thus a feathery snow-flake said,
As down through the measureless space it strayed,
Or, as half by dalliance, half afraid,

Ít seemed in mid air suspended.

"O, no," said the Earth, "thou shalt not lie,
Neglected and lone, on my lap to die,
Thou pure and delicate child of the sky;
For thou wilt be safe in my keeping :
But, then, I must give thee a lovelier form;
Thou'lt not be a part of the wintry storm,

But revive when the sun-beams are yellow and warm,
And the flowers from thy bosom are peeping.

"And then thou shalt have thy choice to be
Restored in the lily that decks the lea,
In the jessamine bloom, the anemone,

Or aught of thy spotless whiteness;
To melt and be cast in a glittering bead,
With pearls that the night scatters over the mead,
In the cup where the bee and the firefly feed,
Regaining thy dazzling brightness.

"Or wouldst thou return to a home in the skies,
To shine in the Iris, I'll let thee arise,

And appear in the many and glorious dyes
A pencil of sunbeams is blending.

But true fair thing, as my name is Earth,
I'll give thee a new and vernal birth,
When thou shalt recover thy primal worth,
And never regret descending!"

"Then I will drop," said the trusting flake;
"But bear in mind that the choice I make
Is not in the flowers, on the dew to awake,

Nor the mist that shall pass with the morning;
For things of thyself they expire with thee;
But those that are lent from on high, like me,
They rise and will live, from thy dust set free,
To the regions above returning.

"And if true to thy word, and just thou art,
Like the spirit that dwells in the holiest heart,
Unsullied by thee, thou will let me depart,
And return to my native heaven;

For I would be placed in the beautiful bow,
From time to time, in thy sight to glow,
So thou may'st remember the flake of snow,
By the promise that God hath given."

Gould.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

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