ART thou a thing of mortal birth,
Whose happy home is on our earth?
Does human blood with life embue
Those wandering veins of heavenly blue,
That stray along thy forehead fair,
Lost 'mid a gleam of golden hair?
Oh! can that light and airy breath
Steal from a being doomed to death;
Those features to the grave be sent
In sleep thus mutely eloquent;
Or, art thou, what thy form would seem,
The phantom of a blessed dream?
A human shape I feel thou art,
I feel it at my beating heart,
Those tremors both of soul and sense
Awoke by infant innocence !
Though dear the forms by fancy wove,
We love them with a transient love,
Thoughts from the living world intrude
Even on her deepest solitude:
But, lovely child! thy magic stole
At once into my inmost soul,
With feelings as thy beauty fair,
And left no other vision there.
To me thy parents are unknown;
Glad would they be their child to own!
And well they must have loved before,
If since thy birth they loved not more.
Thou art a branch of noble stem,
And, seeing thee, I figure them.
What many a childless one would give,
If thou in their still home wouldest live!
Though in thy face no family line
Might sweetly say, "This babe is mine!"
In time thou wouldest become the same
As their own child,-all but the name !
How happy must thy parents be
Who daily live in sight of thee !
Whose hearts no greater pleasure seek
Than see thee smile, and hear thee speak,
And feel all natural griefs beguiled
By thee, their fond, their duteous child.
What joy must in their souls have stirred
When thy first broken words were heard,
Words, that, inspired by Heaven, expressed
The transports dancing in thy breast!
And for thy smile!-thy lip, cheek, brow,
Even while I gaze, are kindling now.
I called thee duteous; am I wrong?
No! truth, I feel, is in my song:
Duteous thy heart's still beatings move
To God, to Nature, and to Love!
To God!-for thou a harmless child
Hast kept his temple undefiled:
To Nature!-for thy tears and sighs
Obey alone her mysteries:
To Love !-for fiends of hate might see
Thou dwellest in love, and love in thee !
What wonder then, though in thy dreams
Thy face with mystic meaning beams!
Oh! that my spirit's eye could see
Whence burst those gleams of ecstacy!
That light of dreaming soul appears
To play from thoughts above thy years.
TO A SLEEPING CHILD.
Thou smilest as if thy soul were soaring
To Heaven, and Heaven's God adoring!
And who can tell what visions high
May bless an infant's sleeping eye?
What brighter throne can brightness find
To reign on than an infant's mind,
Ere sin destroy, or error dim,
The glory of the Seraphim?
BY JAMES MONTGOMERY.
NIGHT is the time for rest;
How sweet when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose;
Stretch the tired limbs and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed!
Night is the time for dreams,
The gay romance of life;
When truth that is, and truth that seems,
Blend in fantastic strife;
Ah! visions less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are !
Night is the time for toil;
To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil
Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang, or heroes wrought.
Night is the time to weep;
To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years;
Hopes that were angels in their birth,
But perished young like things of earth!
Night is the time to watch,
On ocean's dark expanse,
To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings unto the homesick mind
All we have loved and left behind.
Night is the time for care;
Brooding on hours misspent,
To see the spectre of despair
Come to our lonely tent;
Like Brutus 'midst his slumbering host
Startled by Cæsar's stalwart ghost.
Night is the time to muse;
Then from the eye the soul
Takes flight, and, with expanding views,
Beyond the starry pole,
Descries athwart the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.
Night is the time to pray;
Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away,
So will his followers do;
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.
Night is the time for death;
When all around is peace,
Calmly to yield the weary breath,
From sin and suffering cease;
Think of Heaven's bliss, and give the sign
To parting friends :-such death be mine!
WHEN night sits on the earth, and tower and town Are sleeping in the sea of silvery light,
That poureth from the moon who gazeth down, Bathing earth's emerald wheels in glory bright;
When e'en the night wind and the restless sea
Wander in silence, by the hour spell-bound;
When e'en the rustling of the shadowy tree
Is hushed-the welkin bringeth forth a sound ;-
It is not in the sea, nor in the air;
It is not on the valley, nor the hill;
There comes no warning from the sepulchre,
And yet the wing of silence is not still!
Is it the music of some distant sphere
Upon the lonely moonshine clearly borne ?
For faintly comes the wild sound on my ear,
As when together sung the stars of morn.
I look around-still is each gloomy tree-
The waves at rest-the wind's dread flag is furled ;
As if, so still the aëry minstrelsy,
It were the day-sounds of another world.
So once the holy bird sang all night long,
Till broke the day-star's beam on Bethlehem;
His red uprising stayed the fearful song,
Blazing on dewy morning's diadem.
Is it the rushing sound of years to come,
Thrown from the bosom of the endless sea,
Billows of time, that on the outskirts roam
Of the dread ocean of eternity?
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