CHILDHOOD EVER HOPEFUL AND TRUSTFUL.

WHILE childhood's light and hope is above us,

Many and near seem the pleasant fountains,

And a wide, sweet shade are the hearts that love us, As the vale is kept cool by its guarding mountains.

And every moss has its moisture cool,

And every leaf its drop of dew,

And every covert its glancing pool,

And by every rock a spring bursts through.

Half in work, half in play,
Has not yet melted away.
You may see it in the snow,
Lingering as loath to go.

But he has melted and gone,

Gone into earth or air,

Leaving us so alone!

Where is my boy,-O where?

Beautiful child!

All hearts were drawn around thee by thy manners sweet;

Those loved to question thee whom thou didst meet ; Noting within thy speaking eye

The careful thought moulding the just reply.

That beauty which adorned the dusty street,

Suddenly passed away.

We, unawares, had talked and smiled

With an angel undefiled.

Our eyes were holden, and we did not know

That thou so soon must go.

Happy were we

Eight years that life to see.

Eight years to reap the harvest of that love,
That draught of beauty every day to drain,

Each day to watch that soul without a stain.
Happy we are!

For though we stand alone,

Like the disciples, gazing up to heaven

Toward our ascended One,

We know that God, who takes what he has given,

Never a soul forsakes,

And surely gives again that which he takes.

This earth was not his sphere:

Long enough he lingered here!

What was ours to teach, he learned;
Then passed inward, and returned.

By no circuitous way of sin and pain
He went to Heaven again;

But by a path direct pursued his way,
A steady brightening toward the perfect day.

As from the world of sense our boy departs,
God brings him nearer to our heart of hearts;

Sheds sacred lustre on the infant's brow,

Makes him our guardian and our angel now;

His young feet pressed Death's portal without fear, To lift our death-like thoughts, and bring Heaven near.

A LITTLE Son

OUR CHARLIE.

an only son have we;

(God bless the lad, and keep him night and day,
And lead him softly o'er the stony way!)
He is blue-eyed, and flaxen hair has he,
(Such long ago mine own was wont to be,
And people say he much resembles me.)

I've never heard a bird or runlet sing
So sweetly as he talks. His words are small,
Sweet words - O, how deliciously they fall!-
Much like the sound of silver bells they ring,
And fill the house with music. Beauty lies
As naturally upon his cheek as bloom

Upon a peach. Like morning vapor, flies
Before his smile my mind's unfrequent gloom.

A jocund child is he, and full of fun:
He laughs with happy heartiness; and he
His half-closed eyelids twinkles roguishly,
and run.

Till from their lashes tears start up

The drops are bright as diamonds. When they roll
Adown his cheek they seem to be the o'erflowing

Of the deep well of love within his soul,—
The human tenderness of his nature showing.
'Tis pleasant to look upon him while he sleeps:

His plump and chubby arms, and delicate fingers, —
The half-formed smile that round his red lip creeps:
The intellectual glow that faintly lingers
Upon his countenance, as if he talks

With some bright angel on his nightly walks.

We tremble when we think that many a storm

May beat upon him in the time to come,-
That his now beautiful and fragile form
May bear a burden sore and wearisome.
Yet so the stain of guiltiness and shame
Be never placed upon his soul and name,
So he preserves his virtue though he die,
And to his God, his race, his country, prove
A faithful man, whom praise nor glory can buy,
Nor threats of vile, designing men can move,