MY CHILD. To welcome me, within my humble home ;- 127 Then why complain?-When death shall cast his blight Over the spirit, then my bones shall rest Beneath these trees-and from thy swelling breast, O'er them thy song shall pour like a rich flood of light. MY CHILD. BY JOHN PIERPONT. I CANNOT make him dead! Is ever bounding round my study chair; With tears I turn to him, The vision vanishes-he is not there! I walk my parlour floor, I hear a footfall on the chamber stair; To give the boy a call; And then bethink me that-he is not there! I thread the crowded street; A satchel'd lad I meet, With the same beaming eyes and colour'd hair; Follow him with my eye, Scarcely believing that he is not there! 128 MY CHILD. I know his face is hid Under the coffin lid; Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead; O'er it in prayer I knelt; Yet my heart whispers that he is not there! I cannot make him dead! So long watch'd over with parental care, Seek it inquiringly, Before the thought comes that—he is not there! When, at the cool, gray break With my first breathing of the morning air My soul goes up, with joy, To Him who gave my boy, Then comes the sad thought that he is not there! When at the day's calm close, I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, I am, in spirit, praying For our boy's spirit, though-he is not there! Not there!-Where, then, is he? The form I used to see Was but the raiment that he used to wear. Upon that cast-off dress, Is but his wardrobe lock'd;-he is not there! LAKE SUPERIOR. He lives!-In all the past Of seeing him again will I despair; And, on his angel brow, I see it written, "Thou shalt see me there!" Yes, we all live to God! So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear, Meeting at thy right hand, 'T will be our heaven to find that he is there! LAKE SUPERIOR, BY SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. "FATHER OF LAKES!" thy waters bend Boundless and deep, the forests weave Pale Silence, mid thy hollow caves, Sends the hoarse wolf-notes of thy woods, 129 130 LAKE SUPERIOR. Nor can the light canoes, that glide The spell of stillness reigning there. Yet round this waste of wood and wave, The thunder-riven oak, that flings To the lone traveler's kindled eye. The gnarl'd and braided boughs, that show The very echoes round this shore Have caught a strange and gibbering tone; Wave of the wilderness, adieu! Adieu, ye rocks, ye wilds and woods! Roll on, thou element of blue, And fill these awful solitudes! Thou hast no tale to tell of man GOD is thy theme. Ye sounding caves— Whisper of Him, whose mighty plan Deems as a bubble all your waves! THE NOTES OF THE BIRDS. BY I. M'LELLAN, JR. WELL do I love those various harmonies If thou art pain'd with the world's noisy stir, If thou art sick and weak, or mournest at the loss Of brethren gone to that far-distant land To which we all do pass, gentle and poor, How rich the varied choir! The unquiet finch With the sweet airs of Spring, the robin comes, And in her simple song there seems to gush A strain of sorrow when she visiteth Her last year's wither'd nest. But when the gloom Of the deep twilight falls, she takes her perch |