For lowly born was she, and long had eat, With what a zeal she served her master's house: Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was, And could in apt and voluble terms discourse ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN. I saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work. Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then straight up shut For the long dark: ne'er more to see Through glasses of mortality. Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? Shall we say, that Nature blind Checked her hand, and changed her mind, Just when she had exactly wrought A finished pattern without fault? Or lacked she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sickened) To the lone man who, reft of wife, That has his day; while shrivelled crones Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never tuned for thee; Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, Loving hearts were they which gave them. Let not one be missing; nurse, See them laid upon the hearse A more harmless vanity? WORK. Who first invented work, and bound the free To the ever-haunting importunity Of business in the green fields, and the town- Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings, For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel- PARENTAL RECOLLECTIONS. [From Poetry for Children, by Charles and Mary Lamb.] A child's a plaything for an hour; Its pretty tricks we try For that or for a longer space; Then tire, and lay it by. But I knew one that to itself All seasons could control; That would have mocked the sense of pain Out of a grieved soul. Thou straggler into loving arms, Young climber up of knees, Then life and all shall cease. FELICIA HEMANS. [FELICIA DOROTHEA BROWNE was born in Liverpool Sept. 25, 1793, and published her first poems in 1803. She married Captain Hemans, 1812, and died in Dublin May 16, 1835. Her principal works are:-Tales and Historic Scenes, 1816; The Forest Sanctuary, 1826; Lays of Many Lands. 1826; Records of Woman, 1828; Songs of the Affections, 1830; Scenes and Hymns of Life, 1834. She also published various dramas and translations.] Fifty years ago few poets were more popular than Mrs. Hemans; her verses were familiar to all hearts, and won praise from such fastidious critics as Gifford and Jeffrey, no less than from Wordsworth, Scott and Byron. Yet now they are chiefly forgotten, and without injustice. Her tedious romantic tales, her dramas characterless and without invention, are more frequently below than above the mean of merit. Her lyric poetry is more memorable; yet this, even, is less to be valued for its own sake than as the revelation of a delicate and attractive personality. Sprung from a talent expressive not creative, her verses are stamped with feminine qualities. In their familiar pathos, their love of brilliant adventure, their moral earnestness and habit of obvious reflection, no Pythian enthusiasm fills the poet and compels us to forget her womanhood. The inspiring genius of Mrs. Hemans is neither personal nor artistic passion, but a mild Anglican variety of Christianity. She was a woman of wide culture, yet her acquaintance with the civilisations of the past served only to heighten in her eyes the superiority of Protestant England. For the cause of faith she lays her timidity aside, and in a long and feeble poem, The Sceptic, attempts to scale the fastnesses of unbelief. Happily her religion has a gentler side; a side revealing her to be, as Wordsworth said, ‘a holy spirit.' And as a spirit she passed through the world. This life to her, with all its keenly-felt endearments of natural beauty and of |