THE WIDOWER.

Yet still for thee I shed the tear,
For thou wert a poor sufferer here.

Alas! thou strayedst—and man may blame-
But let him pause-he is the same
Blind wanderer o'er life's mazy road-

God made thee, and thy Judge is God!

THE WIDOWER.

OH! I will tell as sad a tale
As ever mortal told,

Of one now imaged in my mind
Not more than five years old.

But she had lived to woman's years,
And she had been beloved,
And she had proved the sweetest joys
That ever woman proved;

For she had wed a tender youth,

By pious parents bred,

And he had been her kindest nurse

When on her dying bed.

She lived with him one little year,
And left an infant boy,

Who to that father's widowed heart

Will be a hope, a joy.

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For to that father's widowed heart
This world must seem a wild,
Where only one sweet blossom blows
And that will be-his child.

The tale is sweet-yet sad enough
To draw our pitying tears-
To think of all a husband's hopes
And all a father's fears.

THE MOTHERLESS LAMB.

THE morn was summer's sweetest morn, And lonely was my way,

By many an unfrequented thorn,

O'er many a mountain

gray.

The slumbering breezes scarcely stirred, sound was still,

And

every

Save when a wandered lamb was heard,

Or when some solitary bird
Sung from its desert hill.

Oh, naked, naked was the scene,
Yet lovely seemed the wild,
For every heath-brown plot between
Some lonely violet smiled.

Thus wandering on with weary feet,
Breathing the morning gale,

I blessed each song, and each wild bleat,
That wont at times to sound so sweet
In my own native vale.

THE MOTHERLESS LAMB.

When, lo! I saw a feeding lamb,
Far from the nibbling flock,
And far from its protecting dam,
Upon the tufted rock.

From my approach it fled away
Even like the driven snow,

And soon it reached the willows gray
Where cold in death its mother lay,
Where croaked the carion crow.

Oh, many a tender thought arose
Within my pensive mind,
'Till I forgot the lambkin's woes
In those of humankind :-
Then I beheld an orphan child
Upon a stranger's knee,

No friend its early tears beguiled,
And yet the unconscious infant smiled
In spite of ills to be.

Three days had past ere I returned
O'er moorland hill and plain,
And still my anxious bosom burned
To see the lamb again :-
I saw it as on that first day

I crossed these mountains o'er,
And soon it sought the willows gray
Where cold in death its mother lay,
As it had done before.

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"Good God!" then to myself I said,
"This lambkin of the wild

Hath tenderer filial duties paid
Than many a human child;

Yet there are some of tenderest breast,
To loftier feelings given,
Who will not, cannot be at rest,

'Till they weep on a parent's breast
Amid the bowers of heaven."

TO A LARK,

SINGING AMID A SNOW-SHOWER.

(By a Friend of the Author.)

SWEET bird! I hear thy tuneful voice
Amid the chilling storm ;
Hast thou a magic in these tones,
To keep thy bosom warm?

Amid the blast how powerfully
Can soar thy little wing!
And 'mid a scene so comfortless
How sweetly thou canst sing.

Why should I grieve since thou canst
Even in a storm like this?

And why, because my heart now bleeds,
Despair of future bliss ?

TO A LADY.

Sweet bird! thy joyful song hath been
Most soothing unto me;

And, when I meet the blasts of life,

I will remember thee.

TO A LADY.

FAREWELL! and though my steps depart
From scenes for ever dear,

O Mary! I must leave

my heart

And all my pleasures here; And I must cherish in my mind,

Where'er my lot shall be,

A thought of her I leave behind—
A hopeless thought of thee.

O Mary! I can ne'er forget

The charm thy presence brought,
No hour has passed since first we met
But thou hast shared my thought:
At early morn, at sultry noon,
Beneath the spreading tree,

And wandering by the evening moon,
Still, still I think of thee.

Yea, thou hast come to cheer

my

dream

And bid me grieve no more,

But at the morn's returning gleam
I sorrowed as before;

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