Down the bright pathway winds, through

veils of hush

And wonderment.

Unuttered yet, the chime
That tells of folding-time;
Hardly the sun has set.

The trees are sweetly troubled with bright

words

From new-alighted birds;

And yet,

--

Here,round my neck, are come to cling and twine,

The arms, the folding arms, close, close and fain,

All mine!

I pleaded to, in vain,

I reached for, only to their dimpled scorning, Down the blue halls of Morning;

Where all things else could lure them on and on,

Now here, now gone,

From bush to bush, from beckoning bough

to bough,

With bird-calls of Come Hither!

Ah, but now,

Now it is dusk. — And from his heaven of

mirth,

A wilding skylark, sudden dropt to earth Along the last low sunbeam yellow moted,

There pushes here, a little golden Boy,
Still-gazing with great eyes.
And wonder-wise,

All fragrancy, all valor silver-throated,
My daughterling, my swan,

My Alison !

Closer than homing lambs against the bars At folding-time, that crowd, all mother

warm,

They crowd, they cling, they wreathe; And thick as sparkles of the thronging stars, Their kisses swarm.

O Rose of being, at whose heart I breathe, Fold over; hold me fast

In the dark Eden of a blinding kiss.

And lightning heart's-desire, be still at last! Heart can no more,

Life can no more,

Than this.

Josephine Preston Peabody

MATERNAL GRIEF

DEPARTED CHILD! I could forget thee once Though at my bosom nursed; this woeful

gain

Thy dissolution brings, that in my soul

Is present and perpetually abides

A shadow, never, never to be displaced
By the returning substance, seen or touched,
Seen by mine eyes, or clasped in my embrace.
Absence and death how differ they! and how
Shall I admit that nothing can restore
What one short sigh so easily removed?—
Death, life, and sleep, reality and thought,
Assist me, God, their boundaries to know,
O teach me calm submission to thy Will!
The Child she mourned had overstepped the
pale

Of Infancy, but still did breathe the air
That sanctifies its confines, and partook
Reflected beams of that celestial light
To all the Little-ones on sinful earth
Not unvouchsafed-a light that warmed
and cheered

Those several qualities of heart and mind
Which, in her own blest nature, rooted deep,
Daily before the Mother's watchful eye,
And not hers only, their peculiar charms
Unfolded, beauty, for its present self,
And for its promises to future years,
With not unfrequent rapture fondly hailed.
Have you espied upon a dewy lawn
A pair of Leverets each provoking each
To a continuance of their fearless sport,
Two separate Creatures in their several gifts
Abounding, but so fashioned that, in all

That Nature prompts them to display, their looks,

Their starts of motion and their fits of rest, An undistinguishable style appears

And character of gladness, as if Spring Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the spirit

Of rejoicing morning were their own?
Such union, in the lovely Girl maintained
And her twin Brother, had the parent seen,
Ere, pouncing like a ravenous bird of prey,
Death in a moment parted them, and left

The Mother, in her turns of anguish, worse
Than desolate; for oft-times from the sound
Of the survivor's sweetest voice (dear child,
He knew it not) and from his happiest
looks,

Did she extract the food of self-reproach, As one that lived ungrateful for the stay By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed And tottering spirit. And full oft the Boy, Now first acquainted with distress and grief, Shrunk from his Mother's presence, shunned with fear

Her sad approach, and stole away to find, In his known haunts of joy where'er he might,

A more congenial object. But, as time Softened her pangs and reconciled the child To what he saw, he gradually returned,

Like a scared Bird encouraged to renew
A broken intercourse; and, while his eyes
Were yet with pensive fear and gentle awe
Turned upon her who bore him, she would
stoop

To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to spread

Faint color over both their pallid cheeks, And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed

And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air

In open fields; and when the glare of day Is gone, and twilight to the Mother's wish Befriends the observance, readily they join In walks whose boundary is the lost One's grave,

Which he with flowers had planted, finding there

Amusement, where the Mother does not miss

Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf
In prayer, yet blending with that solemn

rite

Of pious faith the vanities of grief;

For such, by pitying Angels and by Spirits Transferred to regions upon which the clouds Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed Those willing tears, and unforbidden sighs, And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow,