He sweetly smiled upon the boy,— To explain the truth he straight began, The evening bell his slumber broke, Humbly kneeling on the floor, Nor think that man, while here below, JOHN A. JENNINGS. MY CHILD. I can not make him dead! His fair sunshiny head Is ever bounding round my study chair; Yet when my eyes, now dim With tears, I turn to him, The vision vanishes-he is not there! I walk my parlour floor, And through the open door I hear a footfall on the chamber stair: I'm stepping toward the hall To give the boy a call, And then bethink me that he is not there! I tread the crowded street: A satchelled lad I meet, With the same beaming eyes and coloured hair; And, as he's running by, Follow him with my eye, I know his face is hid Under the coffin-lid, Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair: O'er it in prayer I knelt; Yet my heart whispers that he is not there! I cannot make him dead! When passing by the bed, So long watched over with parental care, My spirit and my eye Seek it inquiringly, Before the thought comes that he is not there! When, at the cool, grey break Of day, from sleep I wake, With my first breathing of the morning air, My soul goes up with joy To Him who gave my boy; Then comes the sad thought that he is not there! When, at the day's calm close, I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, I am, in spirit, praying For our boy's spirit, though he is not there! Not there! Where, then, is he? The form I used to see Was but the raiment that he used to wear. Upon that cast-off dress, Is but his wardrobe locked-he is not there! He lives! In all the past He lives; nor, to the last, Of seeing him again will I despair: In dreams, I see him now; And, on his angel brow, I see it written, "Thou shalt see me there!" Yes, we all live to God! FATHER, thy chastening rod So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear, That, in the spirit-land, Meeting at thy right hand, 'Twill be our heaven to find that he is there! JOHN PIERPOINT. THE LEGEND BEAUTIFUL. "Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled !" That is what the Vision said. In his chamber all alone, Kneeling on the floor of stone, Prayed the Monk in deep contrition Suddenly, as if it lightened, Not as crucified and slain, Not with bleeding hands and feet, But as in the village street, In the house or harvest-field, Halt and lame and blind he healed, In an attitude imploring, Knelt the Monk in rapture lost. Lord, he thought, in heaven that reignest, Who am I, that thus thou deignest To reveal thyself to me? Who am I, that from the centre Then amid his exaltation, He had never heard before. Of divinest self-surrender, Saw the Vision and the Splendour. Deep distress and hesitation Should he go, or should he stay? |