THE EARLY-LOVED.

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

What moving incidents occur in the most quiet and uneventful lives! Did we but know upon what ground we tread in our youthful gaiety, methinks it would arrest our thoughtless merriment. I have met with an early friend!-but it was at her grave.-PRIVATE DIARY.

I.

AWAY! away!-release me !-
I thought there had not been
A power on earth to raise again
The spirit of this scene!

II.

And have you, have you truly

Here made the bed of rest

Mid the opening leaves, the budding trees,
'Neath the sod her young feet pressed?

III.

I lift my eyes, and round me

What an old, familiar spot!

In a moment-years have passed away,

And the present time is not.

IV.

That house-these pleasant gardens—

Walls-walks beloved so well

'T was thus they looked in the buried years! 'T was thus the sunshine fell!

V.

And here, mid friends and fortune,
In life's first, faëry truth,

Dwelt the daughter of a house beloved,
In the brightness of her youth.

VI.

Yes! yes! and in that season,

When the soul was full of glee,

I have stood with her on this very spot,

And laughed right merrily.

VII.

Behold! behold!—you have brought her

Back to her native ground;

And her grave is open at our feet,

With her children gathered round:

VIII.

With her weeping, trembling children ;— With the partner of her lot;

Fill up fill up !-let us turn away!

For the soul can brook it not.

IX.

For me, I have tasked my spirit

In a quest severe and high;

And have gazed perhaps too much on life, As a pageant fleeting by.

X.

Yet in my home's seclusion

Are numbered things of mine,

It were hard, even at the gates of heaven, For its glories to resign.

XI.

And I turn back to life's morning
With a fond and lingering gaze,

And fain would stem the stream of time,
And regain the perished days.

XII.

Yet wherefore ?-for all objects

That round about appear,
Cry-"follow!" for the souls beloved

Are risen-" they are not here!"

XIII.

Then onward!-spread the canvas
To time's impelling breeze!

Let us follow to the isles of rest

In the wide, eternal seas.