H

THE CRADLE.

WOW 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.

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.

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.

Look. She is sad to miss,

Morning and night,

His-her dead father's-kiss;

Tries to be bright,

Good to mamma, and sweet.
That is all. "Marguerite."

Ah, if beside the dead

Slumbered the pain!

Ah, if the hearts that bled

Slept with the slain !

If the grief died ;-But no ;-
Death will not have it so.

M

THE FORGOTTEN GRAVE.

Ο

A SKETCH IN A CEMETERY.

UT from the City's dust and roar,

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."