H

THE CHILD-MUSICIAN

E had played for his lordship's levee,
He had played for her ladyship's whim,

Till the poor little head was heavy,
And the poor little brain would swim.

And the face grew peaked and eerie,
And the large eyes strange and bright,
And they said-too late-" He is weary!
He shall rest for, at least, To-night!"

But at dawn, when the birds were waking,
As they watched in the silent room,
With the sound of a strained cord breaking,
A something snapped in the gloom.

'Twas a string of his violoncello,

:

And they heard him stir in his bed:"Make room for a tired little fellow,

Kind God!" was the last that he said.

THE CRADLE

How

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.

BEFORE SEDAN

"The dead hand clasped a letter."

-SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

HERE in this leafy place

Quiet he lies,

Cold, with his sightless face
Turned to the skies;

'Tis but another dead;
All you can say is said.

Carry his body hence,—

Kings must have slaves;

Kings climb to eminence
Over men's graves:

So this man's eye is dim ;-
Throw the earth over him.

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.

1

BEFORE SEDAN

Hardly the worst of us

Here could have smiled!

Only the tremulous

Words of a child ;–

Prattle, that has for stops

Just a few ruddy drops.

THE FORGOTTEN GRAVE

A SKETCH IN A CEMETERY

UT from the City's dust and roar,

OUT

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