LXXXII

BABY SLEEPS.

The Baby wept;

The mother took it from the nurse's arms

And hushed its fears, and soothed its vain alarms, And Baby slept.

Again it weeps ;

And God doth take it from the mother's armsFrom present griefs, and future unknown harms, And Baby sleeps.

LXXXIII

THE LITTLE SHROUD.

She put him on a snow-white shroud,
A chaplet on his head;

And gathered early primroses

To scatter o'er the dead.

She laid him in his little grave

'Twas hard to lay him there,

When spring was putting forth its flowers,
And everything was fair.

She had lost many children- -now

The last of them was gone;

And day and night she sat and wept
Beside the funeral stone.

One midnight, while her constant tears
Were falling with the dew,

She heard a voice, and lo! her child
Stood by her, weeping too!

His shroud was damp, his face was white; He said "I cannot sleep,

Your tears have made my shroud so wet; Oh, mother, do not weep!"

Oh, love is strong!

the mother's heart

Was filled with tender fears;

Oh, love is strong! - and for her child

Her grief restrained its tears.

One eve a light shone round her bed,
And there she saw him stand-

Her infant, in his little shroud,
A taper in his hand.

"Lo! mother, see my shroud is dry,

And I can sleep once more!"

And beautiful the parting smile
The little infant wore.

And down within the silent grave
He laid his weary head;

And soon the early violets

Grew o'er his

grassy bed.

The mother went her household ways-
Again she knelt in prayer,

And only asked of Heaven its aid

Her heavy lot to bear.

L. E. LANDON.

LXXXIV

BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.

The warrior bowed his crested head,
And tamed his heart of fire,
And sued the haughty king to free
His long imprisoned sire:

"I bring thee here my fortress keys,
I bring my captive train,

I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord !—
Oh, break my father's chain!"

Rise, rise! even now thy father comes,
A ransomed man this day :

Mount thy good horse, and thou and I
Will meet him on his way."
Then lightly rose that loyal son,

And bounded on his steed,
And urged, as if with lance in rest,
The charger's foamy speed.

And lo from far, as on they pressed,
There came a glittering band,

With one that midst them stately rode,
As a leader in the land;

"Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there,
In very truth, is he,

The father whom thy faithful heart,
Hath yearned so long to see."

His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved,
His cheek's blood came and went:
He reached that gray-haired chieftain's side,
And there, dismounting, bent;

A lowly knee to earth he bent,

His father's hand he took,—

What was there in its touch that all
His fiery spirit shook?

That hand was cold—a frozen thing—
It dropped from his like lead :
He looked up to the face above—
The face was of the dead!

A plume waved o'er the noble brow—
The brow was fixed and white;
He met at last his father's eyes—
But in them was no sight!

Up from the ground he sprang, and gazed,
But who could paint that gaze?

They hushed their very hearts, that saw
Its horror and amaze;

They might have chained him, as before
That stony form he stood,

For the power was stricken from his arm,
And from his lip the blood.

"Father

at length he murmured low,

And wept like childhood then-
Talk not of grief till thou hast seen
The tears of warlike men !—
He thought on all his glorious hopes,
And all his young renown,-
He flung the falchion from his side,
And in the dust sat down.

Then covering with his steel-gloved hands
His darkly mournful brow,
"No more, there is no more," he said,
"To lift the sword for now.

My king is false, my hope betrayed,
My father-oh, the worth,

The glory and the loveliness,

Are passed away from earth!

Then, starting from the ground once more,
He seized the monarch's rein,
Amidst the pale and withered looks

Of all the courtier train;

And with a fierce o'ermastering grasp

The rearing war-horse led,

And sternly set them face to face

The king before the dead!