For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THE DEATH OF THE MOTHERLESS.
"As the little one turned for the last time, his tenderly beaming eyes on all around, they seemed to say 'Father!—she calls,—I go,—farewell,—farewell.'"
| "Who calleth thee, my darling boy? What voice is in thine ear?" He answer'd not, but murmur'd on In words that none might hear; And still prolong'd the whispering tone, As if in fond reply To some dear object of delight That fix'd his dying eye. And then, with that confiding smile First by his Mother taught, When freely on her breast he laid His troubled infant thought, And meekly as a placid flower O'er which the dew-drops weep, He bow'd him on his painful bed, And slept the unbroken sleep. But if in yon immortal clime Where flows no parting tear, That root of earthly love may grow Which struck so deeply here, With what a tide of boundless bliss, A thrill of rapture wild, An angel mother in the skies, Must greet her cherub child. |
L. H. S.
Hartford, Conn.