Thy hand is in a bright boy's, Genie,
He calls thee his sweet wee wife,
But let not thy little heart think, Genie,
Childhood the prophet of life:
It may be life's minstrel, Genie,
And sing sweet songs and clear;
But minstrel and prophet now, Genie,
Are not united here.
What will thy future fate be, Genie?
Alas! shall I live to see!
For thou art scarce a sapling, Genie,
And I a moss-grown tree!
I am shedding life's leaves fast, Genie,
Thou art in blossom sweet;
But think betimes of the grave, Genie,
Where young and old oft meet.
TEMPUS FUGIT.
Down the dark tide of time, with flow
Unceasing, hath another year
Its record borne of joy and woe,
Hope, exultation, fear
With constant force through shade and sun,
The swelling stream hath hurried on,
And flung its shattered wave at last
Into the ocean of the past.
Pass on-returnless years! ye bring
Nearer the golden age of Time-
When man, no more an abject thing,
Shall from the sleep of ages spring,
With new-born life, and proudly fling
Aside his bondage and his crime,
And rising in his manhood, be
What God designed him-pure and free.
W. H. BURLEIGH.
KINDRED HEARTS.
MOTHER, there's no soft hand comes now
To smooth the dark curls o'er my brow;
I hear no voice so low and mild
As that which breathed "my own loved child."
No smile will greet, no lips will press,
No prayer will rise, no words will bless,
So fond, so dear, so true for me
As those I ever met from thee.
Oh! that my soul could melt in tears,
And die beneath the pain it bears;
The grief that springs, the thoughts that goad,
Become a heavy maddening load;
For all that heart or memory blends
But hotly scathes and sorely rends;
And feeling, with its biting fangs,
Tortures with sharp and bleeding pangs.
My Mother! thou didst prophesy,
With sighing tone and weeping eye,
That the cold world would never be
A kindred resting-place for me!
Oh, thou wert right! I cannot find
One sympathetic link to bind,
But where some dark alloy comes in
To mar with folly, wrong, or sin.
My Mother! thou didst know full well
My spirit was not fit to dwell
With crowds who dream not of the ray
That burns the very soul away.
That ray is mine; 't is held from God,
But scourges like a blazing rod,
And never glows with fiercer flame
Than when 't is kindled at thy name.
My Mother! thou 'rt remembered yet
With doting love and keen regret;
My birth-day finds me once again
In fervent sorrow, deep as vain.
Thou art gone forever, I must wait
The will of Heaven, the work of fate.
And faith can yield no hope for me
Brighter than that of meeting thee.
HAIL, to this teeming stage of strife!
Hail, lovely miniature of life!
Pilgrim of many cares untold!
Lamb of the world's extended fold!
Fountain of hopes and doubts and fears!
Sweet promise of ecstatic years!
How could I fainly bend the knee,
And turn idolater to thee!
'Tis nature's worship-felt-confessed,
Far as the life which warms the breast;
The sturdy savage, 'midst his clan,
The rudest portraiture of inan,
In trackless woods and boundless plains,
Where everlasting wildness reigns,
Owns the still throb-the secret start-
The hidden impulse of the heart.
But little reck'st thou, O my child,
Of travail on life's thorny wild!
Of all the dangers, all the woes,
Each tottering footstep which inclose;
Ah, little reck'st thou of the scene
So darkly wrought, that spreads between
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