ADVERTISEMENT.

ACCORDING to the first idea of this little work, it would have proved a sort of Christian Year for Teachers and Nurses, and others who are much employed about Children. By degrees it has taken a different shape: but it was thought advisable in the Table of Contents, to mention in, many instances, with the subject of the. Poem, the Day to which it was meant to be adapted. : ..

ΤΟ

ALL FRIENDLY READERS.

There are, who love upon their knees
To linger when their prayers are said,
And lengthen out their Litanies,

In duteous care for quick and dead.
Thou, of all Love the Source and Guide!
O may some hovering thought of theirs,
Where I am kneeling, gently glide,

And higher waft these earth-bound prayers.

There are, who gazing on the stars
Love-tokens read from worlds of light,
Not as dim-seen through prison-bars,

But as with Angels' welcome bright.

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O had we kept entire the vow
And covenant of our infant eyes,
We too might trace untrembling now
Glad lessons in the moonlight skies.

There are, to whom the gay green earth
Might seem a mournful penance cave;
For they have marr'd their holy birth,

Have rent the bowers that o'er them wave. Where underneath Thy Cross they lie,

Mark me a place: Thy Mercy's ray Is healing, even to such as I,

Else wherefore bid us hope and pray?

What if there were, who laid one hand
Upon the Lyre of Innocence,

While the other over sea and land

Beckoned foul shapes, in dream intense Of earthly Passion? Whoso reads,

In pity kneel for him, and pour

A deep heart-prayer (O! much it needs)
That lies may be his hope no more.