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THE MOTHER

PERISHING IN A SNOW STORM.*

BY SEBA SMITH.

THE cold wind swept the mountain's height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And 'mid the cheerless hours of night
A mother wandered with her child.
As through the drifting snow she pressed,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.

*"In the year 1821, a Mrs. Blake perished in a snow-storm in the night time, while travelling over a spur of the Green Mountains in Vermont. She had an infant with her, which was found alive and well in the morning, being carefully wrapped in the mother's clothing."

And colder still the winds did blow,

And darker hours of night came on,

And deeper grew the drifting snow;

Her limbs were chilled her strength was gone.

'Oh, God!' she cried, in accents wild,

'If I must perish, save my child!'

She stripped her mantle from her breast,
And bared her bosom to the storm,

And round the child she wrapped the vest,

And smiled to think her babe was warm.
With one cold kiss one tear she shed,
And sunk upon her snowy bed.

At dawn a traveller passed by,

And saw her 'neath a snowy veil;

The frost of death was in her eye,

Her cheek was cold, and hard, and pale ;—

He moved the robe from off the child,

The babe looked up and sweetly smiled!

THE POET'S MISSION.

BY THE EDITOR.

Он уе, who sweep with an unfettered hand
The myriad harp-strings of the human soul,
Waking a myriad melody thereon,

Strike us the notes of joy! Ye who have poured,
From harps that might have breathed the tones

of heaven,

A minstrelsy of madness, mocking us
With gall-cups in our agonies of woe,—
Weaving the night-pall of a black despair,
When the faint world, with suffering oppressed,
Hath clamored for a hope; ye who have lured
With an o'er-mastering charm, beguilëd hearts,
Caught with the witchery of your honeyed tones,-
Dash from a brother's lip the Circean bowl,
And gird you to uplift the suffering heart
Of the great world aweary. Where the clouds
Darken above our heritage of pain,

Part them a little for the light of heaven,
And let a sunbeam to its shrouded eye.

Priesthood of holy song, go in, go in
To the heart's altars, with a vow of peace.
Learn the high mission God hath given you,
And in the quiet of your still retreats,
Conning your pleasant thoughts, or fashioning
Each rapt impulsion of the glowing soul
To the rich cadences of breathing song,—
Touched with the feeling of all human woe,
Lift up the anthem of your solemn choir
In kindly sympathy with a suffering world.

THE RAINBOW.

BY CHARLES H. UPTON.

ETHEREAL diadem! whose blended rays
From no meridian splendor won—
Yet burst, full-formed, upon the wondrous gaze,
A frontlet braided by the sun.

Celestial smile! beneath whose beans the dove
Afar the olive-branch descried,

And bore the emblem of returning love
Across the water's ebbing tide.

Resplendent arc! whose prism-blended hues
First dwelt above with One alone,-

Till He the holy effluence did diffuse
Around the footstool of His throne.

Sign-manual of God! inscribed on high,
In characters of glowing light-

Where, on the tablet of the vaulted sky,
None but Divinity could write!

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