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Then, Rivers, tell my mother earth, I come

To slumber on her breast!

For, lo, my drooping thoughts refuse to bloom!
My spirit shakes its fetters. I crave room
For rest, for rest.

FUNERAL HYMN.

FATHER! our brother's course is run,
And we bring home thy weary son;
No more he toils, no more he weeps ;
And shall we mourn because he sleeps?

He thank'd Thee, God of earth and sky,
For all that creep, and all that fly;

For weeds, that silent anthems raise,

And thoughts, that make their silence praise.

For every thorn and every flower!
For conquering Right and baffled Power;
For all the meek and all the proud,

He thank'd the Lord of sun and cloud.

For soul to feel and sight to see,

In all thy works, but types of Thee;
For all thy works, and for thy word,
In life and death, he thank'd Thee, Lord.

He thank'd Thee too for struggles long;
For storms, that make the feeble strong;
For every pang thy goodness gave;
For hope deferr'd-and for the grave.

Oh, welcome in the morn, the road
That climbs to virtue's high abode !
But when descends the evening dew,
The inn of rest is welcome too.

Thou sayst to man, "Arise, and run
Thy glorious course, like yonder sun!"
But when thy children need repose,
Their Father's hand the curtain draws.

What though with eyes that yet can weep, The sinner trembles into sleep?

Thou know'st he yet shall wake and rise To gaze on Mercy's brightest skies.

The fearful child, though still caress'd,
Will tremble on his mother's breast,

But he, she knows, is safe from ill,
Though, watch'd by love, he trembles still.

Lord! when our brother wakes, may they, Who watch beneath thy footstool, say, "Another wanderer is forgiven !

Another child is born in heav'n !"

FLOWERS FOR THE HEART.

FLOWERS! winter flowers !-the child is dead,
The mother cannot speak :
O softly couch his little head,
Or Mary's heart will break!
Amid those curls of flaxen hair
This pale pink ribbon twine,
And on the little bosom there
Place this wan lock of mine.
How like a form in cold white stone,
The coffin'd infant lies!

Look, Mother, on thy little one!
And tears will fill thine eyes.

She cannot weep-more faint she grows,

More deadly pale and still

:

Flowers! oh, a flower! a winter rose,

That tiny hand to fill.

Go, search the fields! the lichen wet

Bends o'er th' unfailing well; Beneath the furrow lingers yet

The scarlet pimpernel.

Peeps not a snowdrop in the bower,
Where never froze the spring?

A daisy? Ah! bring childhood's flower!
The half-blown daisy bring!

FLOWERS FOR THE HEART.

Yes, lay the daisy's little head
Beside the little cheek;

O haste the last of five is dead!
The childless cannot speak!

65

TO FANNY.

BRITONESS! angels love in thee
Angelic truth and piety;

But angels do not bow the knee
To God-defying homicides.

For others' woes thy bosom bleeds;
Deep is thy hate of hateful deeds;

But why of words, and forms, and creeds,
O why art thou the homager?

Does true religion war on mind?

Is pure religion deaf and blind?

They best serve God, who serve mankind;
Christ bade us feed his little ones.

O then contemn the base and cold!
Say to thy sons, "Be just and bold,
Unawed by power, unbribed by gold!"
Britoness! this is piety.

VOL. II.

F

Thou bid'st me scorn this world of care; "For better worlds," thou say'st, "prepare!" Not I-if angel forms are there

Apologists of tyranny.

Where Milton's eyes, no longer dim,
See Seraphs walk with slander'd Pym,
I would not hear the cherubim

Sing Tory odes to Castlereagh.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

STOP, Mortal! Here thy brother lies,
The Poet of the Poor.

His books were rivers, woods, and skies,

The meadow, and the moor;

His teachers were the torn hearts' wail,
The tyrant, and the slave,

The street, the factory, the jail,

The palace and the grave!

The meanest thing, earth's feeblest worm,

He fear'd to scorn or hate;

And honour'd in a peasant's form

The equal of the great.

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