And fancy promised many a year
Of happiness-I could not fear
Disease upon her dewy breath-
Alas! how could I think of death?

The week twice fled-and I once more
Returned; and in that very door

There stood the aged form I loved.

Where was that bride? Gone! gone! removed

From earth, and him on earth most dear!

The joy and grief, the hope and fear,
The care and wo, and empty strife

Of this vain world, had ceased with life.

Oh, Mary! I will think of thee,
And thine untimely destiny;

And while I muse on all thou wast,
And all thy loved companion lost,
And while the tear bedims mine eye,
Can I forget I too must die?

ON THE DEATH

OF AN AGED GRANDMOTHER.

"There is no inquisition in the grave, whether thou have lived ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years."-HOLY SCRIPTURES.

THAT aged form* hath sunk to rest,
Her spirit dwelleth with the blest;
She fell asleep like infant child,

And in the arms of death she smiled.
Disease had long, with trembling hands,
Seized on her life's slow wasting sands,
And shaken them with fearful grasp;
As oft, his fatal hold unclasp

Was bidden by some higher power,
That meted life a few years more—
Years filled with pain-with patience too-
While thorns of care and sorrow grew
Around their pathway to the tomb—
A path where roses never bloom—

* Referring to the aged person mentioned in the preceding lines.

Till death at last came kindly down,
And welcomed her without a frown.
As youth and age, of years thus wide,
Thus joined in death, sleep side by side,
Why ask if our frail life we own

Was long or short, so heaven be won?

TO THE MEMORY

OF

MY TWO BROTHERS,

WHO DIED IN EARLY INFANCY.

YE died in young life's early dawn,
My two sweet Williams dear;

Ye budded in the field of life,

But found it cold and drear;

Ye faded in the early spring,
And withered in the ground;
But ye have bloomed in fairer clime,
Where trees of life are found.

J-S EUGENE D- -X.

I will not weep for you, sweet boys,
But I will weep for those

Who still are doomed to drain the cup

1829.

Of life's increasing woes.

And oh! that I, and all who read

The lay that I have sung,

May seek that garb of innocence
Which clothes, in death, the young.

117

1829.

'Tis meet that tears should flow

For thee, dear pledge of love—
'Tis meet-and yet I know
Thou'rt happy now above.
But Jesus wept with them

That wept a brother dead;
Ah! who grief's flood may stem
That bows a mother's head!

Thou'rt happy now, Eugene!
And ours the truest wo,
That still we tread the scene
Of folly here below.

Sweet spirit! be thou near

When Julia weeps-ah! then Breathe gently in her ear— "We'll meet in heaven again.”