TO MY MOTHER. BY MISS LUCRETIA M. DAVIDSON. O THOU whose care sustained my infant years, Which Nature gave me at life's opening day; O say, amid this wilderness of life, What bosom would have throbbed like thine for me? Who would have hung around my sleepless couch, None but a mother-none but one like thee, Whose form has felt disease's mildew touch. Yes, thou hast lighted me to health and life, That wo hath traced thy brow with marks of gloom. Which breathes of thankfulness and love for thee, WHAT IS THAT, MOTHER? BY G. W. DOANE. WHAT is that, mother?— The lark, my child.- The morn has but just looked out, and smiled, Ever, my child, be thy morn's first lays What is that, mother? The dove, my son. And that low, sweet voice, like a widow's moan, Constant and pure by that lonely nest, As the wave is poured from some crystal urn, Ever, my son, be thou like the dove, In friendship as faithful, as constant in love. What is that, mother?— The eagle, boy, Proudly careering his course of joy, What is that, mother? The swan, my love. He is floating down from his native grove, Death darkens his eye, and unplumes his wings, THE EAGLE. BY GRENVILLE MELLEN. SAIL on, thou lone imperial bird, As the night's breezes round thee ring; Thou stoop'st to earth so lowly now? Or hast thou left thy rocking dome, So closely to this shadowy world, Yet lonely is thy shattered nest, Or soaring in thy upper sky. The golden light that bathes thy plumes, Falls cheerless on earth's desert tombs, And makes the north's ice-mountains bright. So come the eagle-hearted down, So come the proud and high to earth, That bore unveiled fame's noontide sun; So man seeks solitude, to die, His high place left, his triumphs done. So round the residence of power, A cold and joyless lustre shines, And on life's pinnacles will lower Clouds dark as bathe the eagle's pines; From God's pure throne-the light that saves! And sheds deep radiance round our graves. THE WANDERER OF AFRICA. BY ALONZO LEWIS. HE launched his boat where the dark waves flow, Through the desert that never was white with snow, When the wind was still, and the sun shone bright, And the stream glowed red with the morning light. He had sat in the cool of the palm's broad shade, And drank of the fountain of Kafnah's glade, |