THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

Hush! talk no more of deadly war,

But, till the dawn of day

Bring home your father from afar,

My children, let us pray."

The morning breezes stirred the vine,
The moon rose high, and set,
And low before the Virgin's shrine

Mother and babes knelt yet.

Ah, they may list each sound that strays,
And ope the fast-barred door,

And through the vine-hung lattice gaze

The father comes no more!

MISS MULOCK.

THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

JHEY may not weep who gaze on thee!
It dries the source of tears,

Like some remembered melody

Unheard for many years;

That, as a ghost, steals out again

From some dim chamber in the brain,
And waves the weary-hearted back-
O'er many a dark and wasted track-

Back to the half-forgotten bowers

Where hope, in boyhood, gathered flowers.

Young mother! oh, how long they haunt

The after-paths of time,

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THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

The mother's low yet happy chaunt,
Whose memory-like the chime
Of church-bells-consecrates the air,
And calls the spirit home to prayer ;

The smile that-then when all things smiled
Was ever like none other;

The kiss-oh, kisses warm and wild,

But not like thine, young mother!— May burn the brain, and waste the breast, Thine only lullabied to rest;

And give the lip a poison-hue,

Where thine fell down, like dew!

And oh! how beautifully bright,
Upon thy glad young brow,
The matron-coronal, whose light
Lies hallowing all things now;
Till all that was too much of earth
Is winnowed from thy sighs,
And love that had a mortal birth
Is tending to the skies.

Though fair thy virgin-years might be,

How far more fair thou art;

A mother's hopes have twined, for thee,

A cestus of the heart,

That flings a glow more rich and warm

O'er every consecrated charm!

Sweet thoughts, beneath thy baby's spells,

Across thy fancy throng,

As nightingales, where echo dwells,

Breathe out their sweetest song!

THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

And thou-whose resting-place is still

A gentle mother's breast-
Take out, by love's untainted rill,

Thy sweet and pleasant rest;
Or look for visions like the sky's
Within her fond and sanguine eyes,—
Those telescopes, where sun and star
Seem nearer than, in truth, they are!
The world has no such future bed,

Nor any dream so sweet,

When, with its storms above thy head,
Its graves beneath thy feet,
Thine early home shall seem to thee

Some scene of vanished faëry ;

When thou, perchance, shalt sit apart,

To sorrow o'er thy silent heart,
A dial, with its sunlight gone,
That only speaks when shone upon!

A mother's love!—that gushing spring
That sends a sweet and silver stream
(Beneath whose low, dim murmuring
The soul lies down, to dream
Of vanished good, from present ill,
When all its other harps are still!)
Along life's dull and narrow vale

To haunt us, like an ancient tale,

And on our path, where'er we roam,

Go, singing of its home!

(Like Arethusa's rill, of old,

That, through the earth, and through the sea,

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36

THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

Led on its waters, sweet and cold,
In unstained purity;

And rose as fresh as at its spring,
From all its long, dark journeying.)
And oh how fondly, on its brink,
When other streams are dried away,

The thirsty spirit kneels to drink
And listen to its lay,-

Its sweet, sad lay, that steals along,

At once a sorrow and a song;

That, with a voice of sadness, cheers,
And makes us glad, through tears!
Oh, might we trace its upward course,
And wander backward to its source,
On that bright upland, far away,
Where hopes, like fairies, used to play;
Hopes that-like fairies when they part-
Left withered rings about the heart!

Young mother! 'tis a joy to creep,—
When many joys are gone,—
Back to the grave of hope, and weep
Where memory keeps the stone!

Till, soothed by voices from the tomb,
And chastened by the church-yard gloom,

The spirit comes abroad, to see

That earth has, still, such forms as thee!

To find, amid the paths of life,

The friend, the mother, and the wife;
And feel the world, whose sun is set,
Is full of moonlight beauty yet!

T. K. HIERVEY.