THE CRADLE.

OW steadfastly she'd worked at it!

How lovingly had drest With all her would-be-mother's wit

That little rosy nest !

How longingly she'd hung on it!

It sometimes seemed, she said, There lay beneath its coverlet

A little sleeping head.

He came at last, the tiny guest,

Ere bleak December fled ;
That rosy nest he never prest ....

Her coffin was his bed.

" The dead hand clasped a letter."

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

What was the white you touched,

There, at his side? Paper his hand had clutched

Tight ere he died ;Message or wish, may be ; Smooth the folds out and see.

Hardly the worst of us

Here could have smiled ! Only the tremulous Words of a child ;

a Prattle, that has for stops Just a few ruddy drops.

Look. She is sad to miss,

Morning and night, His-her dead father's-kiss;

Tries to be bright, Good to mamma, and sweet. That is all. “Marguerite.”

Ah, if beside the dead

Slumbered the pain ! Ah, if the hearts that bled

Slept with the slain ! If the grief died ;—But no;Death will not have it so.

M

THE FORGOTTEN GRAVE.

A SKETCH IN A CEMETERY.

OUT

UT from the City's dust and roar,

You wandered through the open door : Paused at a plaything pail and spade Across a tiny hillock laid ; Then noted on your dexter side Some moneyed mourner's “love or pride"; And so,-beyond a hawthorn-tree, Showering its rain of rosy bloom Alike on low and lofty tomb,You came upon it-suddenly.

How strange! The very grasses' growth
Around it seemed forlorn and loath;
The very ivy seemed to turn
Askance that wreathed the neighbour urn.
The slab had sunk; the head declined,
And left the rails a wreck behind.
No name ; you traced a “6,"—a “7,"—-
Part of “affliction” and of “Heaven”;

a

And then, in letters sharp and clear, You read-O Irony austere ! “ Tho' lost to Sight, to Mem'ry dear.”