ERNESTO.

To love and not to flatter, by a breath

Of purer aspiration was he moved

To suffer and not blame, grieve, not resent;

And when all hopes that needs must knit with self

Their object, were irrevocably gone,

Cherish a mild commemorative love,

Such as a mourner might unblamed bestow
On a departed spirit-

Once again

He sate beside her-for the last time now.
And scarcely was she alter'd; for the hours
Had led her lightly down the vale of life,
Dancing and scattering roses, and her face
Seem'd a perpetual daybreak, and the woods,
Where'er she rambled, echoed through their aisles
The music of a laugh so softly gay

That spring with all her songsters and her songs
Knew nothing like it. But how changed was he!
Care and disease and ardours unrepress'd,
And labours unremitted, and much grief,

Had written their death-warrant on his brow.

Of this she saw not all-she saw but little

That which she could not choose but see she saw; And o'er her sunlit dimples and her smiles

A shadow fell-a transitory shade;

And when the phantom of a hand she clasped

At parting scarce responded to her touch,

She sigh'd-but hoped the best.

When winter came

She sigh'd again;-for with it came the word

That trouble and love had found their place of rest And slept beneath Madeira's orange groves.

MOIR.

CASA WAPPY.*

AND hast thou sought thy heavenly home,
Our fond, dear boy-

The realms where sorrow dare not come,
Where life is joy?

Pure at thy death as at thy birth,
Thy spirit caught no taint from earth;
Even by its bliss we mete our death,

Casa Wappy!

Despair was in our last farewell,

As closed thine eye;

Tears of our anguish may not tell

When thou didst die;

Words may not paint our grief for thee,

Sighs are but bubbles on the sea

Of our unfathomed agony,

Casa Wappy!

Thou wert a vision of delight

To bless us given;

Beauty embodied to our sight,

A type of heaven:

So dear to us thou wert, thou art

Even less thine own self than a part

Of mine and of thy mother's heart,

Casa Wappy!

* Casa Wappy was the self-conferred pet-name of an infant son of the poet. snatched away after a very brief illness.

CASA WAPPY.

Thy bright brief day knew no decline,

'Twas cloudless joy;

Sunrise and night alone were thine
Beloved boy!

This morn beheld thee blithe and gay,
That found thee prostrate in decay,
And ere a third shone, clay was clay,
Casa Wappy!

Gem of our hearth, our household pride,

Earth's undefiled;

Could love have saved, thou hadst not died,

Our dear, sweet child!

Humbly we bow to Fate's decree;

Yet had we hoped that Time should see

Thee mourn for us, not us for thee,

Casa Wappy!

Do what I may, go where I will,
Thou meet'st my sight;

There dost thou glide before me still-
A form of light!

I feel thy breath upon my cheek-
I see thee smile, I hear thee speak--
Till oh my heart is like to break,

Casa Wappy!

Methinks thou smil'st before me now,

With glance of stealth;

The hair thrown back from thy full brow

In buoyant health:

I see thine eye's deep violet light,

Thy dimpled cheek carnationed bright,
Thy clasping arms so round and white,
Casa Wappy!

The nursery shows thy pictured wall,
Thy bat, thy bow,

Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball;
But where art thou?

A corner holds thine empty chair,
Thy playthings idly scattered there,
But speak to us of our despair,

Casa Wappy!

Even to the last thy every word—
To glad, to grieve-

Was sweet as sweetest song of bird
On summer's eve;

In outward beauty undecayed,

Death o'er thy spirit cast no shade,

And like the rainbow thou didst fade,

Casa Wappy!

We mourn for thee when blind blank night
The chamber fills;

We pine for thee when morn's first light

Reddens the hills:

The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea,

All, to the wall-flower and wild pea,

Are changed-we saw the world through thee,

Casa Wappy!

And though, perchance, a smile may gleam

Of casual mirth,

It doth not own, whate'er may seem,

An inward birth:

We miss thy small step on the stair;
We miss thee at thine evening prayer!

All day we miss thee, everywhere,

Casa Wappy!

CASA WAPPY.

Snows muffled earth when thou didst go,
In life's spring bloom,

Down to the appointed house below,
The silent tomb.

But now the green leaves of the tree,
The cuckoo and "the busy bee"
Return-but with them bring not thee,
Casa Wappy!

'Tis so; but can it be (while flowers Revive again)

Man's doom, in death that we and ours For aye remain?

Oh! can it be, that o'er the grave

The grass renewed, should yearly wave,

Yet God forget our child to save?

Casa Wappy!

It cannot be for were it so

Thus man could die,

Life were a mockery, Thought were woe,

And Truth a lie;

Heaven were a coinage of the brain,

Religion frenzy, Virtue vain,

And all our hopes to meet again,

Casa Wappy!

Then be to us, O dear, lost child!
With beam of love,

A star, death's uncongenial wild.
Smiling above;

Soon, soon thy little feet have trod
The skyward path, the seraph's road,
That led thee back from man to God,
Casa Wappy!