BEREAVEMENT AND DEATH.

RESIGNATION.

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
But one dead lamb is there!
Shall we behold her face.

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead, - the child of our affection,
But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though un-

spoken,

May reach her where she lives.

And though, at times, impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,

There is no Death! What seems so is transition: Of village boys and girls at play
This life of mortal breath
In the mild spring evening gray.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child:

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,

When the soft green buds are bursting out,
And up on the south-wind comes a shout

hood, Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

How some they have died, and some they have
left me,

And some are taken from me; all are departed ;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

CHARLES LAMB.

THEY ARE ALL GONE.

THEY are all gone into the world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!
Their very memory is fair and bright,

And my sad thoughts doth clear;

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days,
My days which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

O holy hope and high humility,
High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have showed them

me

To kindle my cold love.

M

Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just, -
Shining nowhere but in the dark !
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may

know,

At first sight, if the bird be flown;

But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted

themes,

And into glory peep.

If a star were confined into a tomb,

Her captive flames must needs burn there, But when the hand that locked her up gives room, She'll shine through all the sphere.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my child- O Father of eternal life, and all

Created glories under thee!

Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty.