O, should my gentle child be spared to man- | But I know (for God hath told me this) that he hood's years like me, A holier and a wiser man I trust that he will be; And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow, I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now. I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three; I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be, How silver sweet those tones of his when he prattles on my knee; I do not think his light-blue eye is, like his brother's, keen, Nor his brow so full of childish thought as his hath ever been; But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and tender feeling; And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing. When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass us in the street, Will shout for joy, and bless my boy, he looks earthly love; When we think of what our darling is, and what we still must be, When we muse on that world's perfect bliss, and When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel Oh! JOHN MOULTRIE THE MITHERLESS BAIRN. 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 eyes must dim, limping roun' the house to my garret, when I heard the greetin' o' God comfort us for all the love which we shall a wean. A lassie was thumpin' a bairn, when out cam a big dame, bellowin', "Ye hussie, will ye lick a mitherless bairn!," I hobled lose in him. up the stair and wrote the sang afore sleepin'. " 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 bairn! To us, for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles were given; 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, Nor Nane covers his cauld back, or haps his bare head; His wee hackit heelies are hard as the airn, 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; 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 THOM. MY MOTHER'S PICTURE. OUT OF NORFOLK, THE GIFT OF MY COUSIN, ANN BODHAM. 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 All this, and, more endearing still than all, Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. 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? ers, 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," 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, With pure heart newly stamped from nature's "O Lord! O dear, my heart will break, I shall Toss the light ball, bestride the stick, (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk! (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) Thou pretty opening rose ! (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) Balmy and breathing music like the south, (He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove; (I'll tell you what, my love, I cannot write unless he 's sent above.) THE LOST HEIR. "O where, and O where THOMAS HOOD. Is my bonnie laddie gone?"-OLD SONG. ONE day, as I was going by That chilled my very blood; Bedaubed with grease and mud. 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, Had borrowed the child to go a-begging with, | And Do, good people, move on, such a rabble of boys! Go home This day is the sorrowfullest day of my life, ever since my name was Betty Morgan, He's his nose is still a good un, though the bridge is broke, by his falling on a pewter pint pot; got the most elegant wide mouth in the world, and very large teeth for his age; And quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson's child to play Cupid on the Drury Lane stage. And then he has got such dear winning waysbut O, I never, never shall see him no more ! 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! Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, was at twenty a penny! organ: O my Billy - my head will turn right round if he's got kiddynapped with them Ital- And the threepence he'd got by grottoing was ians, spent in plums, and sixty for a child is too many. 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, O 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 of mine, playing like angels in our a distracted Mother and Father about alley, Town. 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, come home, to your best of Mothers! I'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they'd run over their own Sisters and Brothers. Or maybe he's stole by some chimbly-sweeping wretch, to stick fast in narrow flues and what not, 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, though a little cast he's certainly got ; his hair, and I'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin! THOMAS HOOD. |