THE DEATH-BED.

WE watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied-
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed-she had
Another morn than ours.

213

LINES

ON SEEING MY WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN SLEEPING IN THE SAME CHAMBER.

AND has the earth lost its so spacious round,
The sky its blue circumference above,
That in this little chamber there is found
Both earth and heaven-my universe of love!
All that my God can give me or remove,
Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death.
Sweet that in this small compass I behove
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!

COBLENTZ, Nov. 1835.

TO MY DAUGHTER,

ON HER BIRTHDAY.

I.

DEAR Fanny! nine long years ago,
While yet the morning sun was low,
And rosy with the eastern glow
The landscape smiled;

Whilst low'd the newly-waken'd herds-
Sweet as the early song of birds,
I heard those first, delightful words,

"Thou hast a child!"

11.

Along with that uprising dew

Tears glisten'd in my eyes, though few

To hail a dawning quite as new

To me, as Time:

It was not sorrow-not annoy

But like a happy maid, though coy,
With grief-like welcome, even Joy
Forestalls its prime.

III.

So may'st thou live, dear! many years,
In all the bliss that life endears,

Not without smiles, nor yet from tears,

Too strictly kept:

When first thy infant littleness

I folded in my fond caress,
The greatest proof of happiness
Was this-I wept.

Sept. 1839.

TO A CHILD

EMBRACING HIS MOTHER.

I.

LOVE thy mother, little one!
Kiss and clasp her neck again,-
Hereafter she may have a son
Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain.
Love thy mother, little one!

II.

Gaze upon her living eyes,

And mirror back her love for thee,— Hereafter thou may'st shudder sighs To meet them when they cannot see. Gaze upon her living eyes!

III.

Press her lips the while they glow With love that they have often told,Hereafter thou may'st press in woe, And kiss them till thine own are cold.

Press her lips the while they glow!