O, should my gentle child be spared to man- | But I know (for God hath told me this) that he earthly love; is now at rest, An Inverary correspondent writes: "Thom gave me the fol And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching lowing narrative as to the origin of The Mitherless Bairn': I quote his own words. When I was livin' in Aberdeen, I was limping roun' the house to my garret, when I heard the greetin' o' A lassie was thumpin' a bairn, when out cam a big dame, bellowin', "Ye hussie, will ye lick a mitherless bairn!," I hobled up the stair and wrote the sang afore sleepin'." a wean. I have a son, a third sweet son; his age I cannot WHEN a' ither bairnies are hushed to their hame tell, By aunty, or cousin, or frecky grand-dame, For they reckon not by years and months where Wha stands last and lanely, an' naebody carin'? he has gone to dwell. 'Tis the puir doited loonie, the mitherless To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles were given; bairn! And then he bade farewell to earth, and went to The mitherless bairn gangs to his lane bed; live in heaven. I cannot tell what form is his, what looks he weareth now, Nane covers his cauld back, or haps his bare head; His wee hackit heelies are hard as the airn, Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining An' litheless the lair o' the mitherless bairn. seraph brow. The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss Aneath his cauld brow siccan dreams hover there, which he doth feel, O' hands that wont kindly to kame his dark hair; Are numbered with the secret things which God But mornin' brings clutches, a' reckless an' stern, will not reveal. That lo'e nae the locks o' the mitherless bairn! Yon sister that sang o'er his saftly rocked bed The father toils sair their wee bannock to earn, Her spirit, that passed in yon hour o' his birth, May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, O, speak him na harshly, he trembles the But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. while, He bends to your bidding, and blesses your smile; In their dark hour o' anguish the heartless shall learn Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more; Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; That God deals the blow, for the mitherless bairn! Drew me to school along the public way, WILLIAM THOм. MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. The meek intelligence of those dear eyes O welcome guest, though unexpected here! A momentary dream that thou art she. -- Delighted with my bawble coach, and wrapped glowed, All this, and, more endearing still than all, Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. ers, The violet, the pink, the jessamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin, My mother! when I learned that thou wast When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowdead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun? Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss ; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in blissAh, that maternal smile! it answers - Yes. I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day; I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away; And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown; Could those few pleasant days again appear, here? That I should ill requite thee to constrain Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. Thou as a gallant bark, from Albion's coast, "Where tempests never beat nor billows roar," lost; And day by day some current's thwarting force And now, farewell!-Time, unrevoked, has run And, while the wings of fancy still are free, WILLIAM COWPER. I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. I REMEMBER, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn. He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day; But now I often wish the night Had borne my breath away! I remember, I remember The roses, red and white, The violets, and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light! The lilacs where the robin built, And where my brother set With pure heart newly stamped from nature's "O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall Is my bonnie laddie gone?"-OLD SONG. ONE day, as I was going by That chilled my very blood; Bedaubed with grease and mud. With streaming hair and heaving breast, As one stark mad with grief. The left a lump of beef. At last her frenzy seemed to reach go stick stark staring wild! Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying lost-looking child? Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if I only knew which way A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay. I am all in a quiver- get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you little Kitty M'Nab! You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you did, you dirty deceitful young drab. The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my own blessed Motherly eyes, Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little dirt-pies. I wonder he left the court, where he was better off than all the other young boys, With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys. When his father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever the clock strikes one, He'll be rampant, he will, at his child being lost; and the beef and the inguns not done! La bless you, good folks, mind your own concerns, and don't be making a mob in the street; O Sergeant M'Farlane! you have not come across my poor little boy, have you, in your beat? Do, good people, move on! don't stand staring at me like a parcel of stupid stuck pigs; Saints forbid but he's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a court for the sake of his clothes by the priggs; He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a shilling one day in Rag Fair; And his trousers considering not very much patched, and red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. His shirt, it's very lucky I'd got washing in the tub, or that might have gone with the rest; But he'd got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn on the breast. He'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sewed in, and not quite so much jagged at the brim. With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a fit, and you'll know by that if it's him. Except being so well dressed, my mind would misgive, some old beggar woman, in want of an orphan, Them vile Savoyards! they lost him once before O dear! to think of losing him just after nussall along of following a monkey and an ing him back from death's door! organ: O my Billy - my head will turn right round Only the very last month when the windfalls, if he's got kiddynapped with them Ital- And the threepence he'd got by grottoing was They'll make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, the outlandish tatterdemalions. And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us Billy-where are you, Billy?—I'm as hoarse all, and, drat him! made a seize of our hog. as a crow, with screaming for ye, you And sha'n't have half a voice, no more I sha'n't, 0 Billy, you're bursting my heart in two, and my life won't be of no more vally, It's no use to send the Crier to cry him about, he's such a blunderin' drunken old dog; The last time he was fetched to find a lost child he was guzzling with his bell at the Crown, If I'm to see other folks' darlin's, and none And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother and Father about Town. of mine, playing like angels in our And what shall I do but cry out my eyes, when I would run all the wide world over to find him, Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month through stealing a penny bun, The Lord forbid of any child of mine! I think it would kill me raily, Billy-where are you, Billy, I say? come, Billy, Or maybe he's stole by some chimbly-sweeping And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the soot has ketched, and the chimbly 's red hot. To find my Bill holdin' up his little innocent O, I'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap my two longin' eyes.on his face. hand at the Old Bailey. For though I say it as ought n't, yet I will say, And if I called him a beauty, it's no lie, but I'll owe 'em five pounds, and a blessing besides, For he's my darlin' of darlin's, and if he don't soon come back, you'll see me drop stone dead on the place. I only wish I'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and would n't I hug him and kiss him! Lawk! I never knew what a precious he was but a child don't not feel like a child till you miss him. Why, there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it's that Billy as sartin as sin! as will only bring him safe and sound But let me get him home, with a good grip of home. He's blue eyes, and not to be called a squint, his hair, and I'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin! though a little cast he 's certainly got ; THOMAS HOOD. |