May blight untimely, ye would nourish up
To fair proportions and a queenly grace ;
Or, grown to the full majesty of years,
May feel too harshly the rude play of storms,
That sweep the earth, with the wild whirlwind's
wrath!
That smile, glad mother, borrowed from thine own,
Just taught to play around its tiny lip,
Waking that joy-thrill to thy 'bosom's depths,'—
Oh! it may grow, with the quick lapse of years,
To a most perfect witchery, and lure
Some dark, destroying angel to his wiles!
That eye, whose light is caught from the pure heavens
It scarce has looked upon, too soon may gleam
With an unearthly wildness, and that heart,
Pressed to thine own with ever answering pulse,
And beating lightly in its innocence,
May feel the rush of passions scathing it;
Or, pressed too long to this chill world's hard heart, That beats not to its beating, giving back
But cold responses to its yearning hopes,—
Grow passionless and still, as for the grave.
Those lips, that drink a mother's fondest kiss,
But know not yet to fashion the return,—
Those lips a parent's pride would teach to say
• My father,' and the household words we love,-
May learn the world's poor, hollow mockeries,
Or breathe the poison of a treacherous heart.
That ear, unwonted yet to listen aught
Save the pleased mother's gentlest lullaby,
Or father's proud 'my daughter'—may soon feel
The grating discords of the world's harsh voice,
Calling to sorrow and to early tears.
-The unquiet foot so often thou dost press,
With a rapt mother's fondness, to thy lips,
That have just known the joy,-oh! shall it tread
The scorner's path?
Shall that fair, first-born babe
Grow wayward in its early years ;—forget
The eye that watched it ever tenderly-
That smiled upon it with the morning light
And at the evening dews, and waked for it
In the still watches of the slumbering night,-
The hand that rocked it to its cradle rest,
Stayed its first tottering on the nursery floor,
Parted the curls upon its childhood brow,
And smoothed the ruffles of its infant care,-
The voice that hushed its broken slumberings,
That taught it in its lisping infancy,
OUR FATHER,' and the pleasant evening hymn,That calmed the tumult of its troubled breast,
With the kind soothings of a tone, like that
Which stilled the waves on wild Gennesaret,—
And ever was around its joyous hours
In gentle melodies of breathing love?
Forget such tenderness?
And thou dost pray. The bosom that has heaved
To the slight pressure of thy first-born's cheek,
Has felt the yearnings of a mother's love
That would not be forbidden, and thy prayer,
Borne by the spirits ministering around
Thy waking and the infant's rest, has gone
To the recording angel. And the God
Who keepeth covenant, remembereth
That gentle falling of baptismal dews,
And stoopeth now with broad o'er-shadowing
Of the celestial wings, to shelter it.
Mother, have faith. So the fair flower that springs
To its unfolding beauty, 'neath thine eye,
Shall grow, with the soft sunlight of thy smiles,
To scatter perfume round thee-and shall pass,
After life's Autumn, to the 'living green'
Of the Sweet Fields,' and the unfading Spring.
Within the crowded chancel, while the shroud Of night comes down upon the poor and proud, Low bended there.
Perchance there be
Some lowly worshippers at eventide,
Breathing their humble prayer, on some hill-side By the deep sea :
And rayless coverts of the pathless woods,
With scarce a stream to glad their solitudes,
Or light to cheer.
And suppliant now,
At altars beaten by tempest's shock,
At some rude cross upon the rifted rock,
They humbly bow.
Falls like the coming of an angel's spell,
O'er the calmed spirit, when the shadows tell
The evening hour.
Of life's short day, may its receding light
Which led us on, be peaceful, calm and bright,
As when it rose.
Upon our hearts a trembling record trace,
And may we go to our long resting place
Without a tear.
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