CAIN AT THE GRAVE OF ADA. AND is it here thou liest, Ada! wife, Sharer of all my earliest hopes and thoughts, When they were worthy thee, when I was like thee, Oh, how I loved thee then! yea, now returns That love, and I am all I should have been. But thou hear 'st not, nor seest, thine ear is closed, Oppressive earth lies heavy on thy heart: Oh that thou couldst behold me kneeling here, Imploring thee to trust me yet again! What art thou who wert here with me so late? Thy cherished flowers droop o'er thee, thou art dead, Open, great mother Earth! thy infinite womb, Yet will I see thee, Ada!-from thy grave I will rend-hold-profane not thou the dead! CAIN AT THE GRAVE OF ADA. As him in body, ye are now unite, Oh that my soul's remorse atonement were To purify my being!-calm lies on me I have not felt since boyhood; yet one more John Edmund Reade. IF THOU WERT BY MY SIDE. IF thou wert by side, my love, If thou, my love, wert by my side, How gaily would our pinnace glide I miss thee at the dawning gray, IF THOU WERT BY MY SIDE. I miss thee when by Gunga's stream But most beneath the lamp's pale beam, I spread my books, my pencil try, Thy meek, attentive ear. But when of morn or eve the star I feel, though thou art distant far, Then on then on! where duty leads, O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads, That course, nor Delhi's kingly gates, For sweet the bliss us both awaits By yonder western main. Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say. Across the dark-blue sea; But ne'er were hearts so light and gay As then shall meet in thee! Reginald Hebr. ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD. A little infant lies within Who never knew the name of sin, Beloved-bright-and all our own-Like morning fair-and sooner flown! No leaves or garlands wither here, No marble hides our dear one's bier, The work of alien hands, The months it lived, the name it bore, The silence telleth-nothing more! No more, yet Silence stalketh round And Death keeps watch without a sound But palest here and latest hid How fair he was-how very fair, Pray, Mothers, pray, at close of day, |