LITTLE CHILDREN.

CANDID and curious, how they seek
All truth to know and scan;

And, ere the budding mind can speak,
Begin to study man!

Confiding sweetness colors all they say,
And angels listen when they try to pray.

CHILDHOOD DEPARTED.

AND yet, O where art thou,
Childhood! with sunny brow
And floating hair,—

Where art thou hiding now?

I have sought thee everywhere,

All

among

the shrubs and flowers

Of those garden-walks of ours;

Thou art not there!

When the shadow of Night's wings

Hath darkened all the earth,
I listen for thy gambolings
Beside the cheerful hearth;
Thou art not there!

I listen to the far-off bell,

I murmur o'er the little songs
Which thou did'st love so well;
Pleasant memories come in throngs,
And mine eyes are blurred with tears,
But no glimpse of thee appears:
O, childish hopes and childish fancies,
Whither have ye fled away?

I long for you in mournful trances,
I long for you by night and day;
Beautiful thoughts that once were mine,
Might I but win you back once more,
Might ye about my being twine
And cluster as ye did of yore!
Hath the sun forgot its brightness,

Have the stars forgot to shine,

That they bring not their wonted lightness

To this weary heart of mine?

"T is not the sun that shone on thee,

Happy childhood! long ago,

Not the same stars silently
Looking on the same bright snow, –
Not the same that youth and I
Together watched in days gone by!
No, not the same, alas for me!

O for the hopes and for the feelings,
Childhood, that I shared with thee!

"EARTH's hopes will wither like earth's flowers,
Joys born with spring die with spring's hours,
Change o'er the youthful frame must roll,
But love and life are of the soul!"

THE DESERTED GARDEN.

I MIND me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun,
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.

The trees were interwoven wild,

And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out,
But not a happy child.

Adventurous joy it was for me!

I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beneath a poplar-tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,
Bedropt with roses waxen white,
Well satisfied with dew and light,
And careless to be seen.

And gladdest hours for me did glide
In silence at the rose-tree wall:
A thrush made gladness musical
Upon the other side.

My childhood from my life is parted;
My footsteps from the moss which drew

Its fairy circle round: anew

The garden is deserted!

Another thrush may there rehearse

The madrigals which sweetest are,

No more for me! — myself afar

Do sing a sadder verse! — ·

Ah me! ah me! when erst I lay

In that child's nest so greenly wrought,

I laughed to myself and thought
The time will pass away!

I laughed still, and did not fear
But that, whene'er was past away
The childish time, some happier play
My womanhood would cheer.

I knew the time would pass away, —
And yet beside the rose-tree wall,
Dear God!

how seldom, if at all,

The cypress high among the trees,

And I behold white sepulchres

As well as the white rose.