ANASTASIUS TO HIS CHILD ALEXIS.

BY THE REV. C. H. TOWNSEND.

SLEEP, oh! sleep, my dearest one,
While I watch thy placid slumbers,
And pour, in low and pensive tone,
To lull thee, wild and plaintive numbers.
If my tears thy pillows steep,
Sleep-thou canst not see me weep!

Thy cheek is pillowed on my arm,
As if secure that thee it shielded,
And there a flush more deeply warm
The pressure to its tint hath yielded :
Thy hand, which mine did lately clasp,
Dwells there, relaxing in its grasp.

I long to view thy beauteous face,

To cheer me through the day's long toiling;
I love its every change to trace,

Shaded by thought-in pleasure smiling:
Amid the world, with pride I see
All eyes do homage unto thee!

But, oh! this hour is most-most dear,
When even from the friendly stealing,

I seek my only pleasures here,

And fix on thee my every feeling;
When thou dost seem all, all my own;
To live-breathe-smile-for me alone!

And, oh! to guard thee thus from ill,
No other joy can rank before it;
When ev'n thy sleep seems conscious still
How true a love is watching o'er it!
Such perfect confidence is shewn
In this 'defenceless hour alone.

Sleep, thou canst not know the love,

Which passes all of outward shewing; Much may my looks, words, actions prove, But how much more untold is glowing! And now, in silent loneliness,

It passes all I most express.

A tender sadness melts my soul,

And Memory, with her train attending, Seems all her pages to unroll,

While Hope her airy dreams is blending. My tears are sweet; yet see not thou, Lest thou mistake their drops for woe,

I think of all I am the while,

Of guilt's dark hours, and life all blasted, And thou the only thing to smile,

Upon the heart, so widely wasted :
Oh! what can tell the rush of thought,
With joy, grief, rapture, anguish, fraught!

But with a thrill of keener pain,

A shuddering dread has now o'ercome me, That dries those kindly tears again,—

Oh! should the future tear thee from me!

Ah me, ah me! I hold thee now,—

Shall I ask ever-where art thou?

I cannot call thee back again,

Nor o'er again these joys be living, And thousand worlds were pledged in vain, To give what now this hour is giving; But I shall writhe in fruitless woe,

With

pangs which-no, I do not know.

Yet, wherefore thus perversely run
To boded ill from present pleasure ?
I know not why; but lives there one
Who binds his life in one rich treasure,

S

Whom the wild thought has never crossed, "What should I feel, were this but lost?"

Should he now wake, and see my face
So changed by passions, fiercely blending,
Would he not deem that in my place

Some fiend was o'er his pillow bending?
I speak too loud—he seems disturbed—
My wild emotion must be curbed.

Hark! his lips move; and gently frame,
In dreamy slumber, words half broken;
Ah! was not that?-it is my name,

Which by those cherub lips is spoken!
I feel a thrill of vivid joy,

To know that I his thoughts employ.

He feared, that, ere his eyes could close,

A weary vigil mine should number;

Dear innocent! he little knows

How quickly youth shakes hands with slumber :

E'en ere my voice had softened, thou

Wert in oblivion, deep as now.

Now gently I withdraw my arm,

Fearful thy quiet sleep of breaking;

Thou giv'st no token of alarm,

And pleased I see thee not awaking;

The taper shaded with my hand,

Gazing on thee awhile I stand.

How beautiful in his repose!

The long dark lash the white lid fringing,

The rich hair clustering on his brows,

And the blue vein his forehead tinging.

What childish innocence displayed,
E'en in that hand so careless laid!

When to my own near couch I steal,

I'll listen still to hear thee breathing,

'Till with that lullaby I feel

Sleep's dewy mantle o'er me wreathing!
How sweet the sound, how welcome, dear,
Which tells me what I love is near !

But first, ere I can calm recline,

In silent prayer I kneel beside thee,
And sue each blessing may be thine,
Long forfeited, or still denied me.
Now one last kiss with caution given,
And I resign my watch to Heaven.

SONG.

LEAVES quiver in the balmy air, the moon grows bright above, Beauty is beaming every where, 't is just the hour for love! So calm, so silent, I could deem beneath yon arch of blue Breathe none beside myself, dear love, the nightingale and you!

The mazy brook is whispering now, a soft tale to the flowers,
The night-breeze freshens on my brow, how sweet these

moonlight hours!

And sweet the twilight path that guides my footsteps through the

dew,

Each eve, to this green dell, my love, the nightingale and you!

Now some seek halls of revelry, where flows the ruddy wine;
And merry may their banquet be,—a deeper joy is mine!
They choose companions many a one, I am content with two,—
The nightingale and you, my love! the nightingale and you !
Literary Souvenir.

THE DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.

BY ALARIC A. WATTS.

Fare thee well, thou first and fairest!

BURNS.

My sweet one, my sweet one, the tears were in my eyes
When first I clasped thee to my heart, and heard thy feeble cries;
For I thought of all that I had borne, as I bent me down to kiss
Thy cherry lip and sunny brow, my first-born bud of bliss!

I turned to many a withered hope,—to years of grief and pain,— And the cruel wrongs of a bitter world flashed o'er my boding brain ;

I thought of friends, grown worse than cold, of persecuting foes,— And I asked of heaven, if ills like these must mar thy youth's repose!

I gazed upon thy quiet face-half blinded by my tears

Till gleams of bliss, unfelt before, came brightening on my fears; Sweet rays of hope, that fairer shone 'mid the clouds of gloom that bound them,

As stars dart down their loveliest light when midnight skies are 'round them.

My sweet one, my sweet one, thy life's brief hour is o'er,
And a father's anxious fears for thee can fever me no more;

And for the hopes—the sun-bright hopes—that blossomed at thy birth,

They too have fled, to prove how frail are cherished things of earth!

'Tis true that thou wert young, my child; but though brief thy span below,

To me it was a little age of agony and woe;

For, from thy first faint dawn of life thy cheek began to fade,

And my heart had scarce thy welcome breathed, ere my hopes were wrapt in shade.