Thou shalt be a babe once more,
Helpless, speechless, as before;
Yet awhile, oh wake and speak!
Yes! by that quick-flushing cheek;
By that quivering lip we tell
What life-pulses in thee swell;
In that flashing kindling eye
The waking spirit we descry ;
Glorious essence! feel thy glory,
Wake and warble forth thy story!"

SPIRIT'S REPLY.

"Oh I come from the glorious and beautiful land
Which the breath of Jehovah for ever hath fann'd;
Where the spirits divine in His sunlight rejoice,
And the echoes ring out to the sound of His voice.
I awoke in His hand, and His touch was the spell
Made my spirit to leap and my pulses to swell;
I felt his warm breath o'er my nature soft stealing,
And life everlasting sprang up with the feeling;
I saw His bright face; it bent o'er me and smiled,
And I knew Him, my Father, and I was His child ;
He blessed me; His voice through my bosom yet rings;
Oh it fired me and crown'd me, and gave me my wings!
He opened His hand; like an eagle set free

I launched gloriously forth on eternity's sea;

As a beam from the sun which for ever shall shine,
So I
sprang from my sire, and His lifetime is mine.
And I traversed the worlds He had given me to roam,
For He ever was with me, and He was my home;
So I kept on my road through infinitude far

From angel to angel, from system to star,

My pinions untiring, my raptures high flowing,

Young worlds round me springing, young stars round me glowing;

The song of the seraphs was loud in mine ear,

And I caught the sweet thunder from every sphere;
I met the fair angels with greeting of bliss,
And the beautiful saints with a rapturous kiss;

I learnt the gay songs that the cherubim sing,
And wafted the rainbows away on my wing;
Then I dreamed I was weary, and sunk for rest
On a blue-eyed seraph's white arm and breast;
And methinks I have slumbered from that time to this,
When ye waked me again with your voices of bliss.
Oh 'tis strange, sweet spirits! even now it seems
I am wandering alone in a world of dreams :
Yet not quite alone; for a face divine
Doth sometimes over my wanderings shine;
A sweet voice falls on my wondering ear,
In tones like those I was wont to hear,
And my heart leaps up to its music clear;
In a downy embrace my young form reposes,
And I sink to sleep on a bosom of roses;
But my spirit is bound with a chain of late,
And my pulses are curbed by a wondrous weight.
Say why-ah why!-do such shadows of sadness
Fall over this sunshiny bosom of gladness?
And why doth such agony ofttimes wring
My heart-that tiny and tenderest thing?
I cannot, I cannot tell why it should be

That tears should do aught with a creature like me.
Oh, I feel a weight which I knew not before;

I have lost my wings; I am free no more ;

I have lost my Father; my spirit doth sigh ;
I am come to suffer, to weep, to die ;
Oh, surely I've come to a region of pain,
And I wish I were back with the stars again !

ANGELS' SONG.

Sleep, beauteous blossom! sleep;

Thou must awake to weep;

Thou must be lulled into dreams once more;
Thou must forget what thou hast been before,
For thou art born, bright creature, shrouded wholly
In the dark robes of sin and death unholy,

And thou must first be changed by heaven's pure light
Ere thou regain thy wings and robes of white;
Then sleep, young spirit, sleep.

The mother listened, wrapt, entranced, amazed,
But ever on the beauteous boy she gazed;
And as the deep song o'er her senses stole,
Delicious slumber filled her trembling soul;
The sleep of soul too exquisitely waking,
The slumber of the heart filled nigh to breaking;
The insensibility that lulls to rest

The throbs of the too keenly feeling breast,
The bound assigned alike to bliss and woe,
When feeling withers in her own fierce glow;
"Dark from excess of light;" sleep most like death;
When each exhausted sense stands still for breath,
So, on bright Tabor, slept the favoured three,
And so in thy deep gloom, Gethsemane !

The mother slept-and waked. Oh, sweet surprise!
Again she sits beneath those moonlit skies!
The moonbeams still are through the jasmine creeping,
And still her boy is on her bosom sleeping;
The same bright star is high; the same soft breeze
Fans her warm brow, and shakes the slumbering trees;
The moonlight tints her darling's radiant face;
How lovely doth he rest in that enrapt embrace !
Charmed with the joy to find him yet her own,
She feels a rapture rise till then unknown;
She strains him to her swelling heart, and now
Prints countless glowing kisses on his brow;
And lo! her restless love his slumber breaks,
The sunny dream is past,-the sunny dreamer wakes.

REBEKAH! brightest babe; this tale of mine Is consecrate to baby charms alone;

I love to bend at childhood's beaming shrine, To adore, not thee, but the Great Hand divine, And God's sweet workmanship in thee to own ; So let me be thy laureate; let me write Thy name on this my story; and maybe, In after years, thy young affections bright Shall prize the early homage, fond and free, A youthful muse's love presents to thee. Spring-time, 1847.

MY THREE SISTERS.

O MY sister Geraldine is bright
And beautiful as May;

Her hair-the softest shade of night,
Her face the dawn of day.

I love to see 'mid beauty's throng,
Her eye the brightest star;
And when sweet voices blend in song

To hear hers sweetest far:

To feel when her white fingers float
Over the trembling keys

That hearts beat time to every note,
Like billows to the breeze.

But ah! at night when all is past,
And the gay music hush'd,

I see that countenance o'ercast

Which late like morning blush'd;
The jewel from her brow is spurn'd,
Her heart's sad sigh I hear,

And all a sister's pride is turn'd
Into a sister's tear.

But oh! my little loving Kate!
Our dying mother's boon!
My lovely toy! my merry mate!
A beam of summer's noon !
Sporting with thee my heart breaks free,

And in thy laughter clear
Joys more than when the melody

Of Geraldine I hear.

Dear child! what fresh and simple bliss
To chase thee o'er the lawn,

To win or yield the prize,—a kiss,—
Thou fairy-footed fawn!

To shower the daisies on thy head,
So rich with sunny hair,

To kneel with thee beside thy bed
In sweet and solemn prayer.
My Katie is the bright bluebell,

My Geraldine the rose ;

But the flower that in my heart doth dwell

On earth no longer grows.

O, lily white? O, sister meek!

Mary, my own fond twin.

The Saviour thou didst early seek,

Thee early saved from sin.

How often in my dreams I feel

Thy soft seraphic kiss!

While o'er my heart thy whispers steal,

Like balmy waves of bliss.

I seek the haunts we lov'd so well,-
The lowly house of prayer,

The widow's cot, the prisoner's cell,
And thou dost meet me there.
Yes, Mary! death's dividing hand
Gives but a passing pain,

For soon in love's eternal land

We shall embrace again;