Was in her cradle-coffin lying;

Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:

So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
For darker closets of the tomb!

She did but ope an eye, and put

A clear beam forth, then straight up shut

For the long dark: ne'er more to see
Through glasses of mortality.

Riddle of destiny, who can show

What thy short visit meant, or know

What thy errand here below?

Shall we say, that Nature blind

Checked her hand, and changed her mind,
Just when she had exactly wrought
A finished pattern without fault?
Could she flag, or could she tire,

Or lacked she the Promethean fire

(With her nine moons' long workings sickened) That should thy little limbs have quickened? Limbs so firm, they seemed to assure

Life of health and days mature:
Woman's self in miniature!
Limbs so fair, they might supply
(Themselves now but cold imagery)
The sculptor to make Beauty by.
Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry,
That babe, or mother, one must die;

So in mercy left the stock,

And cut the branch; to save the shock
Of young years widowed; and the pain,
When single state comes back again
To the lone man who, 'reft of wife,
Thenceforward drags a maimed life?
The economy of Heaven is dark;

And wisest clerks have missed the mark,
Why Human Buds, like this, should fall,
More brief than fly ephemeral,

That has his day; while shrivelled crones
Stiffen with age to stocks and stones,
And crabbed use the conscience sears
In sinners of an hundred years.
Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss.
Rites, which custom does impose,
Silver bells and baby clothes;
Coral redder than those lips,
Which pale death did late eclipse;
Music framed for infants' glee,

Whistle never tuned for thee;

Though thou wantest not, thou shalt have them,

Loving hearts were they which gave them.

Let not one be missing; nurse,

See them laid upon the hearse
Of infant slain by doom perverse.

Why should kings and nobles have
Pictured trophies to their grave;
And we, churls, to thee deny
Thy pretty toys with thee to lie,
A more harmless vanity?

THE CHRISTENING.

ARRAYED—a half-angelic sight-
In vests of pure Baptismal white,
The Mother to the Font doth bring
The little helpless nameless thing,
With hushes soft and mild caressing,
At once to get a name and blessing.
Close by the babe the Priest doth stand,
The Cleansing Water at his hand,
Which must assoil the soul within

From every stain of Adam' sin.
The Infant eyes the mystic scenes,
Nor knows what all this wonder means;

And now he smiles, as if to say

"I am a Christian made this day;" Now frighted clings to Nurse's hold, Shrinking from the water cold,

Whose virtues, rightly understood,

Are, as Bethesda's waters, good.

Strange words-The World, the Flesh, the DevilPoor Babe, what can it know of Evil?

But we must silently adore

Mysterious truths, and not explore.
Enough for him, in after-times,
When he shall read these artless rhymes,
If, looking back upon this day
With quiet conscience, he can say—
"I have in part redeemed the pledge
Of my Baptismal privilege;

And more and more will strive to flee

All which my Sponsors kind did then renounce for me."

THE YOUNG CATECHIST.*

WHILE this tawny Ethiop prayeth,.
Painter, who is she that stayeth
By, with skin of whitest lustre,
Sunny locks, a shining cluster,
Saint-like seeming to direct him
To the Power that must protect him?

* A picture by Henry Meyer, Esq.

Is she of the Heaven-born Three,

Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity;

Or some Cherub?

They you mention

Far transcend my weak invention.

'Tis a simple Christian child,

Missionary young and mild,

From her stock of Scriptural knowledge,

Bible-taught without a college,

Which by reading she could gather,
Teaches him to say OUR FATHER
To the common Parent, who

Colour not respects, nor hue.

White and black in Him have part,

Who looks not to the skin, but heart.

TO A YOUNG FRIEND,

ON HER TWENTY-FIRST BIRTH-DAY.

CROWN me a cheerful goblet, while I pray

A blessing on thy years, young Isola;
Young, but no more a child. How swift have flown

To me thy girlish times, a woman grown
Beneath my heedless eyes! in vain I rack
My fancy to believe the almanac