Yet all in vain, the task I ween
Will baffle all thy girlish art,
While still in every glance is seen
Reflected back thy mother's heart,
The playful gentleness and love,
That round home's hearth unchanging move.
Until, perchance, old Time brings round
The hour that thou and I must part,
When, like thy mother, thou hast found
A dearer than thy father's heart;-
A truer love thou'lt never know.
Yet Love will call, and thou must go!
But truce to dreams of such a date,
Thy doll is care enough for thee,
And puss, thine arch and playful mate,
Dogging thy footsteps playfully,
Then bounding from thy outstretched wand,
The fittest suitor for thy hand.
Play on together, happy pair,
In arch simplicity and mirth,
Alas! that joy so light and rare
Should be so fleet a guest on earth,
And things so fashioned to allure
Should change to maids and cats demure!
'SAY what remains when Hope is fled?'
She answered,' endless weeping!'
For in the herdsman's eye she read
Who in his shroud lay sleeping.
At Embsay rung the matin-bell,
The stag was roused on Harden-fell;
The mingled sounds were swelling, dying,
And down the wharfe a heron was flying;
When near the cabin in the wood,
In tartan clad and forest green,-
With hound in leash, and hawk in hood,
The boy of Egremond was seen.
Blithe was his song, a song of yore;
But where the rock is rent in two,
And the river rushes through,
His voice was heard no more?
'Twas but a step-the gulph he passed; But that step!-it was his last!
(As through the mist he winged his way, A cloud that hovers night and day,)
The hound hung back, and back he drew The master and his merlin too.
"First charm of Life, last lingering on its stage,
Youth's passionate fountain, limpid still in age,
Pure love, whose flame round the domestic hearth
Findeth in rudest hearts a kindling birth,
And burneth heavenward, while it clings to earth."
DEAR Anna, many a year has passed,
And scenes both bright and dark, since last
I breathed thy name in song;
But think not though my lyre has kept
Long silence, friendship e'er has slept,
Or memory done thee wrong.
Oh! how could friendship sleep the while, Bound as we are by tear and smile,
So oft our lot to share!
For never on thy open brow
Did sorrow brood, or pleasure glow,
And mine unchanged appear.
Bethink thee how the same loved hearth
Was witness to our childhood's mirth,
Our youth's romantic glow;
One were our hopes, our pleasures one,
Like buds which share breeze, shower, and sun, The blossoms of one bough.
Such ties we owned in joy's light hour,
But there's a spell of mightier power
In sorrow's mutual tear;
And have not we sad vigil kept
O'er dying friends, and watched and wept
Beside the same cold bier?
Can then my voice be mute, my knee
Unbent in solemn prayer for thee,
On this thy natal day,
That blessings earthly and divine,
Upon thy lengthened path may shine,
With ever brightening ray?
That thou may'st mourn no sweet hope crossed, No cherished blossom early lost
That gems thy social bower;
But each to other spared, that time
May see thee shield their opening prime,
And they thy waning hour?
But should my prayer be vain, and thou
Beneath the frequent storm shouldst bow,
Oh! may such light be given,
As from that dark, mysterious cloud
On Israel's troubled pathway glowed,
Directing thee to heaven.
FAIR as two lilies from one stem, which spring
In vernal fragrance sweetly blossoming,
And liker far in form, and size and hue,
If liker could be, the Twin Sisters grew,
Each limb, each joint, each feature could com
Exact in one with what the other's were;
No look, no gesture, difference of mien,
Not e'en a look distinctive could be seen;
And like as were their outward forms designed,
So were th' internal workings of the mind;
What could to one delight or pain impart,
Raised the same feelings in the other's heart;
Now gay with hope, and now with pity mild,
They wept together, and together smiled.
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