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To a Child.

DEAR Child! whom sleep can hardly tame,
As live and beautiful as flame,
Thou glancest round my graver hours
As if thy crown of wild-wood flowers
Were not by mortal forehead worn,
But on the summer breeze were borne,
Or on a mountain streamlet's waves
Came glistening down from dreamy caves.

With bright round cheek, amid whose glow
Delight and wonder come and go;
And eyes whose inward meanings play,
Congenial with the light of day;

And brow so calm, a home for Thought
Before he knows his dwelling wrought;
Though wise indeed thou seemest not,
Thou brightenest well the wise man's lot.

That shout proclaims the undoubting mind;
That laughter leaves no ache behind;
And in thy look and dance of glee,
Unforced, unthought of, simply free,
How weak the schoolman's formal art
Thy soul and body's bliss to part!
I hail thee Childhood's very Lord,
In gaze and glance, in voice and word.

In spite of all foreboding fear,
A thing thou art of present cheer;
And thus to be beloved and known,
As is a rushy fountain's tone,
As is the forest's leafy shade,
Or blackbird's hidden serenade.
Thou art a flash that lights the whole-
A gush from Nature's vernal soul.

And yet, dear child! within thee lives
A power that deeper feeling gives,
That makes thee more than light or air,
Than all things sweet and all things fair;
And sweet and fair as aught may be,
Diviner life belongs to thee,
For 'mid thine aimless joys began
The perfect heart and will of Man.

Thus what thou art foreshows to me How greater far thou soon shalt be;

And while amid thy garlands blow
The winds that warbling come and go,
Ever within, not loud but clear,
Prophetic murmur fills the ear,
And says that every human birth
Anew discloses God to earth.

JOHN STERLING.

The Mother's Hope.

Is there, when the winds are singing
In the happy summer time,
When the raptured air is ringing
With Earth's music heavenward springing,

Forest chirp, and village chime,

Is there, of the sounds that float
Unsighingly, a single note

Half so sweet, and clear, and wild,
As the laughter of a child?

Listen! and be now delighted:

Morn hath touched her golden strings; Earth and Sky their vows have plighted; Life and Light are reunited,

Amid countless carollings;
Yet, delicious as they are,

There's a sound that's sweeter far-
One that makes the heart rejoice
More than all, the human voice.

Organ finer, deeper, clearer,

Though it be a stranger's tone— Than the winds or waters dearer, More enchanting to the hearer,

For it answereth to his own. But, of all its witching words, Sweeter than the songs of birds, Those are sweetest, bubbling wild Through the laughter of a child. Harmonies from time-touched towers, Haunted strains from rivulets, Hum of bees among the flowers, Rustling leaves, and silver showers,These, ere long, the ear forgets; But in mine there is a sound Ringing on the whole year roundHeart-deep laughter that I heard Ere my child could speak a word.

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The Mother's Heart.

WHEN first thou camest, gentle, shy, and fond,
My eldest born, first hope, and dearest treasure,
My heart received thee with a joy beyond

All that it yet had felt of earthly pleasure;
Nor thought that any love again might be
So deep and strong as that I felt for thee.

Faithful and true, with sense beyond thy years,
And natural piety that leaned to heaven;
Wrung by a harsh word suddenly to tears,

Yet patient to rebuke when justly given — Obedient-easy to be reconciled And meekly cheerful; such wert thou, my child!

Not willing to be left still by my side,
Haunting my walks, while summer-day was dy-
ing;

Nor leaving in thy turn, but pleased to glide
Through the dark room where I was sadly lying;
Or by the couch of pain, a sitter meek,
Watch the dim eye, and kiss the fevered cheek.

O boy! of such as thou are oftenest made

Earth's fragile idols; like a tender flower, No strength in all thy freshness, prone to fade, And bending weakly to the thunder-shower;

Then THOU, my merry love-bold in thy glee, Under the bough, or by the firelight dancing, With thy sweet temper, and thy spirit free

Didst come, as restless as a bird's wing glancing, Full of a wild and irrepressible mirth, Like a young sunbeam to the gladdened earth!

Thine was the shout, the song, the burst of joy, Which sweet from childhood's rosy lip resoundeth;

Thine was the eager spirit naught could cloy,

And the glad heart from which all grief reboundeth;

And many a mirthful jest and mock reply
Lurked in the laughter of thy dark-blue eye.

And thine was many an art to win and bless,
The cold and stern to joy and fondness warming;
The coaxing smile — the frequent soft caress—

The earnest tearful prayer all wrath disarming!
Again my heart a new affection found,
But thought that love with thee had reached its
bound.

At length THOU camest-thou, the last and least, Nick-named "the Emperor" by thy laughing

brothers

Because a haughty spirit swelled thy breast,

And thou didst seek to rule and sway the others

Mingling with every playful infant wile
A mimic majesty that made us smile.

And oh! most like a regal child wert thou!
An eye of resolute and successful scheming!
Fair shoulders, curling lips, and dauntless brow,
Fit for the world's strife, not for poet's dreaming;
And proud the lifting of thy stately head,
And the firm bearing of thy conscious tread.

Different from both! yet each succeeding claim I, that all other love had been forswearing, Forthwith admitted, equal and the same;

Nor injured either by this love's comparing, Nor stole a fraction for the newer callBut in the mother's heart found room for all! CAROLINE NORTON.

Mother's Love.

He sang so wildly, did the boy,

That you could never tell

If 'twas a madman's voice you heard,

Or if the spirit of a bird

Within his heart did dwell

A bird that dallies with his voice

Among the matted branches;

Or on the free blue air his note,

To pierce, and fall, and rise, and float,
With bolder utterance launches.
None ever was so sweet as he,
The boy that wildly sang to me;
Though toilsome was the way and long,
He led me, not to lose the song.

But when again we stood below
The unhidden sky, his feet

Grew slacker, and his note more slow,
But more than doubly sweet.
He led me then a little way
Athwart the barren moor,

And there he stayed, and bad me stay,
Beside a cottage door;

I could have stayed of my own will,
In truth, my eye and heart to fill

With the sweet sight which I saw there,
At the dwelling of the cottager.

A little in the doorway sitting,
The mother plied her busy knitting;
And her cheek so softly smiled,
You might be sure, although her gaze
Was on the meshes of the lace,

Yet her thoughts were with her child.

But when the boy had heard her voice,
As o'er her work she did rejoice,
His became silent altogether;
And slyly creeping by the wall,
He seized a single plume, let fall
By some wild bird of longest feather;
And all a-tremble with his freak,
He touched her lightly on the cheek.

Oh what a loveliness her eyes
Gather in that one moment's space,
While peeping round the post she spies
Her darling's laughing face!

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THE PET LAMB.

125

"What ails thee, young one? what? Why pull so at thy cord?

"Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they

are now;

Is it not well with thee? well both for bed and Then I'll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the board?

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plough.

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"Thou know'st that twice a day I have brought Again and once again, did I repeat the song;

thee in this can

Fresh water from the brook, as clear as ever ran; And twice in the day, when the ground is wet with dew,

"Nay," said I, "more than half to the damsel must belong,

For she looked with such a look, and she spake with such a tone,

I bring thee draughts of milk warm milk it is, That I almost received her heart into my own."

and new.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

The Shepherd Boy.

LIKE some vision olden

Of far other time,
When the age was golden,

In the young world's prime,

Is thy soft pipe ringing,

O lonely shepherd boy:

What song art thou singing,
In thy youth and joy?

Or art thou complaining
Of thy lowly lot,

And thine own disdaining,

Dost ask what thou hast not?
Of the future dreaming,
Weary of the past,

For the present scheming-
All but what thou hast.
No, thou art delighting

In thy summer home;
Where the flowers inviting
Tempt the bee to roam;
Where the cowslip, bending
With its golden bells,
Of each glad hour's ending
With a sweet chime tells.

All wild creatures love him
When he is alone;
Every bird above him

Sings its softest tone.
Thankful to high Heaven,
Humble in thy joy,

Much to thee is given,

Lowly shepherd boy.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.

To my Daughter.

DEAR Fanny! nine long years ago,
While yet the morning sun was low,
And rosy with the eastern glow

The landscape smiled;

Whilst lowed the newly-wakened herds-
Sweet as the early song of birds,
I heard those first, delightful words,
"Thou hast a child!"

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WHEN the corn-fields and meadows
Are pearled with the dew,
With the first sunny shadow
Walks little Boy Blue.

Oh the Nymphs and the Graces
Still gleam on his eyes,
And the kind fairy faces
Look down from the skies;
And a secret revealing
Of life within life,
When feeling meets feeling
In musical strife;

A winding and weaving
In flowers and in trees,
A floating and heaving
In sunlight and breeze;

A striving and soaring,

A gladness and grace, Make him kneel half-adoring The God in the place.

Then amid the live shadows

Of lambs at their play, Where the kine scent the meadows With breath like the May,

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