ON SEEING MY WIFE AND CHIL

DREN SLEEPING.

X

ND has the earth lost its so spacious round,

The sky, its blue circumference above, That in this little chamber there are found

Both earth and heaven

Love?

my universe of

All that my God can give me, or remove, Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death, Sweet that in this small compass I behoove To live their living, and to breathe their breath!

Almost I wish, that with one common sigh We might resign all mundane care and strife,

And seek together that transcendent sky, Where Father, Mother, Children, Husband,

Wife,

Together pant in everlasting life!

Thomas Hood.

DOMESTIC LOVE.

LOVE of loves!-to thy white hand is given

Of earthly happiness the golden key. Thine are the joyous hours of Winter's even, When the babes cling around their father's

knee,

And thine the voice, that, on the midnight sea, Melts the rude mariner with thoughts of

home,

Peopling the gloom with all he longs to see. Spirit! I've built thee a shrine; and thou

hast come,

And on its altar closed-forever closed, thy

plume.

George Croly.

DOMESTIC PEACE.

ELL me on what holy ground
May Domestic Peace be found?
Halcyon Daughter of the skies,
Far on fearful wings she flies,
From the pomp of sceptred state,
From the rebels' noisy hate.

THE MOTHER'S HOPE.

99

In a cottaged vale she dwells,
Listening to the Sabbath bells!
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless Honor's meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow, smiling through her tears,
And, conscious of the past, employ,
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.

Samuel T. Coleridge.

THE MOTHER'S HOPE.

I

S there, when the winds are singing
In the happy summer time

When the raptured air is ringing

With Earth's music heavenward springing,
Forest chirp, and village chime —

Is there of the sounds that float
Unsighingly, a single note

Half so sweet, and clear, and wild,
As the laughter of a child?

792350 A

100

THE MOTHER'S HOPE.

Listen! and be now delighted:

Morn hath touched her golden strings; Earth and Sky their vows have plighted; Life and Light are reunited,

Amid countless carollings;

Yet, delicious as they are,

There's sound that's sweeter far
One that makes the heart rejoice
More than all the human voice!

Organ finer, deeper, clearer,

Though it be a stranger's tone Than the winds or waters dearer, More enchanting to the hearer, For it answereth to his own: But of all its witching words, Those are sweetest bubbling wild Through the laughter of a child.

Harmonies from time-touched towers,
Haunted strains from rivulets,
Hum of bees among the flowers,
Rustling leaves and silver showers, -
These, ere long, the ear forgets;
But in mine there is a sound
Ringing on the whole year round
Heart-deep laughter that I heard
Ere my child could speak a word.

THE MOTHER'S HOPE.

ΙΟΙ

Ah! 'twas heard by ear far purer,
Fondlier formed to catch the strain
Ear of one whose love is surer
Hers, the mother, the endurer

Of the deepest share of pain ; Hers the deepest bliss to treasure Memories of that cry of pleasure; Hers to hoard, a life-time after, Echoes of that infant laughter.

'Tis a mother's large affection
Hears with a mysterious sense-
Breathings that evade detection,
Whisper faint and fine inflection,
Thrill in her with power intense.
Childhood's honeyed words untaught
Hiveth she in loving thought-
Tones that never thence depart;
For she listens with her heart.

Laman Blanchard.