And in her still, clear, matron face,
All solemnly serene,
A shadowed image I could trace
Of that young slumberer's mien.
Stranger! thou pitiest me," she said
With lips that faintly smiled,
"As here I watch beside my dead,
My fair and precious child.
"But know, the time-worn heart
By pangs in this world riven,
Keener than theirs who yield, like me,
An angel thus to heaven!"
He left his home with a bounding heart,
For the world it was all before him;
And felt it scarce a pain to part
Such bright sunbeams came o'er him.
He turned him to visions of future years;
The rainbow's hues were round them-
And a father's bodings, a mother's tears,
Might not weigh with the hopes that crowned them.
That mother's cheek is far paler now
Than when she last caressed him
There's an added gloom on that father's brow
Since the hour when last he blessed him.
Oh! that all human hopes should prove
Like the flowers that will fade to-morrow-
And the cankering visions of anxious love
Ever end in ruth and sorrow!
He left his home with a swelling sail,
Of fame and fortune dreaming:
With a spirit as free as the vernal gale
Or the pennon above him streaming.
He hath reached his goal-by a distant wave
'Neath a sultry sun they've laid him—
And stranger forms bent o'er his grave
When the last sad rites were paid him.
He should have died in his own loved land
With friends and kinsfolk near him;
Not have withered thus on a foreign strand
With no thought, save heaven, to cheer him.
But what recks it now? is his sleep less sound
In the port where the wild waves swept him,
Than if home's green turf his grave had bound,
And the hearts he loved had wept him?
Then why repine? Can he feel the rays
That a pestilent sun sheds o'er him?
Or share the grief that may cloud the days
Of the friends who now deplore him?
No--his bark's at anchor, its sails are furled,
It hath 'scaped the storm's deep chiding-
And, safe from the buffeting waves of the world
In a haven of peace is riding.
When spring to woods and wastes around
Brought bloom and joy again,
The murdered traveller's bones were found
Far down a narrow glen;
The fragrant birch above him hung
Her tassels in the sky :
And many a vernal blossom sprung,
And nodded careless by.
The red-bird warbled as he wrought
His hanging nest o'erhead;
And, fearless, near the fatal spot
Her young the partridge led.
But there was weeping far away:
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Grew sorrowful and dim.
They little knew, who loved him so,
The fearful death he met
When shouting o'er the desert snow
Unarmed and hard beset-
Nor how, when round the frosty pole
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain cat and wild wolf stole
To banquet on the dead;-
Nor how, when strangers found his bones,
They dressed the hasty bier;
And marked his grave with nameless stones
Unmoistened by a tear.
But how long they looked, and feared, and wept, Within his distant home;
And dreamed, and started as they slept,
For joy that he was come!
So long they looked, but never spied
His welcome step again ;-
Nor knew the fearful death he died,
Far down that narrow glen.
In schools of wisdom all the day was spent,
His steps at eve the Rabbi homeward bent,
With homeward thoughts that dwelled upon his wife
And two fair children which adorned his life-
She meeting at the threshold, led him in:
"Ever rejoicing at your wished return,
Yet do I most so now-for since the morn
I have been much perplexed and sorely tried
Upon a point which you shall now decide.
"Some years ago, a friend into my care
Some jewels gave, rich, precious gems they were,
And, having given them to my care, this friend
Did after neither come for them nor send;
But left them in my keeping for so long,
That now it seems to me almost a wrong,
That he should suddenly arrive to-day,
And take the jewels that he left away.
What think you? shall I freely yield them back
And without murmuring-so henceforth to lack
Those gems myself which I had learned to see
Almost as mine for ever-mine in fee."
"What question can there be? your own true heart, Must sure inform you of the only part;→
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