She always stood upon the steps
Just by the cottage door, Waiting to kiss me when I came
Each night home from the store. Her eyes were like two glorious stars,
Dancing in heaven's own blue— "Papa," she'd call like a wee bird,
"I's looten out for oo!"

Alas! how sadly do our lives
Change as we onward roam! For now no birdie voice calls out
To bid me welcome home. No little hands stretched out for me,
No blue eyes dancing bright, No baby face peeps from the door
When I come home at night.

And yet there's comfort in the thought
That when life's toil is o'er, And passing through the sable flood
I gain the brighter shore, My little angel at the gate,
With eyes divinely blue, Will call with birdie voice, "Papa,
I's looten out for oo!"

ANONYMOUS.

MY CHILD.

I cannot make him dead! His fair sunshiny head Is ever bounding round my study chair;
Yet when my eyes, now dim With tears, I turn to him, The vision vanishes,—he is not there!

I walk my parlor floor, And, through the open door, I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;
I'm stepping toward the hall To give the boy a call; And then bethink me that—he is not there!

I thread the crowded street; A satchelled lad I meet, With the same beaming eyes and colored hair;
And, as he's running by, Follow him with my eye, Scarcely believing that—he is not there!

I know his face is hid Under the coffin lid; Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair;
My hand that marble felt; O'er it in prayer I knelt; Yet my heart whispers that—he is not there!

I cannot make him dead! When passing by the bed, So long watched over with parental care,
My spirit and my eye Seek him inquiringly, Before the thought comes, that—he is not there!