THE CHILD’S FIRST GRIEF.

Oh! call my brother back to me!

I cannot play alone;

The summer comes with flower and bee—

Where is my brother gone?

“The butterfly is glancing bright

Across the sunbeam’s track;

I care not now to chase its flight—

Oh! call my brother back!

“The flowers run wild—the flowers we sow’d

Around our garden tree;

Our vine is drooping with its load—

Oh! call him back to me!”

“He would not hear thy voice, fair child!

He may not come to thee;

The face that once like spring-time smiled,

On earth no more thou’lt see.

“A rose’s brief, bright life of joy,

Such unto him was given:

Go—thou must play alone, my boy!

Thy brother is in heaven.”

“And has he left his birds and flowers;

And must I call in vain?

And through the long, long summer hours,

Will he not come again?

“And by the brook and in the glade

Are all our wanderings o’er?

Oh! while my brother with me play’d,

Would I had loved him more!”

A blessing on thy head, thou child of many hopes and fears!

A rainbow-welcome thine hath been, of mingled smiles and tears.

Thy father greets thee unto life with a full and chasten’d heart,

For a solemn gift from God thou comest, all precious as thou art!

I see thee not asleep, fair boy! upon thy mother’s breast,

Yet well I know how guarded there shall be thy rosy rest;

And how her soul with love, and prayer, and gladness, will o’erflow,

While bending o’er thy soft-seal’d eyes, thou dear one! well I know.

A blessing on thy gentle head! and bless’d thou art in truth,

For a home where God is felt awaits thy childhood and thy youth:

Around thee pure and holy thoughts shall dwell as light and air,

And steal unto thine heart, and wake the germs now folded there.

Smile on thy mother! while she feels that unto her is given,

In that young day-spring glance, the pledge of a soul to rear for heaven!

Smile! and sweet peace be o’er thy sleep, joy o’er thy wakening shed!

Blessings and blessings evermore, fair boy! upon thy head!

[396] Addressed to the child of her eldest brother.