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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 the 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 colour 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 hath 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,
Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace of

Heaven

As now it is, seems to her own fond heart, Immortal as the love that gave it being.

XXVII.

THE SAILOR'S MOTHER.

ONE morning (raw it was and wet

A foggy day in winter time)

A Woman on the road I met,

Not old, though something past her prime :

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The following tale was written as an Episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The facts are true; no invention as to these has been exercised, as none was needed.

O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus

My story may begin) O balmy time,
In which a love-knot on a lady's brow
Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven!
To such inheritance of blessed fancy
(Fancy that sports more desperately with minds
Than ever fortune hath been known to do)
The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by years
Whose progress had a little overstepped
His stripling prime. A town of small repute,
Among the vine-clad mountains of Auvergne,
Was the Youth's birth-place. There he wooed a
Maid

Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit

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Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock,
From which her graces and her honours sprung:
And hence the father of the enamoured Youth,
With haughty indignation, spurned the thought
Of such alliance.-From their cradles up,
With but a step between their several homes,
Twins had they been in pleasure; after strife
And petty quarrels, had grown fond again ;
Each other's advocate, each other's stay;
And, in their happiest moments, not content,
If more divided than a sportive pair

Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering
Within the eddy of a common blast,
Or hidden only by the concave depth

Of neighbouring billows from each other's sight.

Thus, not without concurrence of an age Unknown to memory, was an earnest given By ready nature for a life of love, For endless constancy, and placid truth; But whatsoe'er of such rare treasure lay Reserved, had fate permitted, for support Of their maturer years, his present mind Was under fascination;-he beheld A vision, and adored the thing he saw. Arabian fiction never filled the world With half the wonders that were wrought for him. Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring; Life turned the meanest of her implements,

Before his eyes, to price above all gold ;

The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine;

Her chamber-window did surpass in glory

The portals of the dawn; all paradise
Could, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him:-pathways, walks,
Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
Surcharged, within him, overblest to move
Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world
To its dull round of ordinary cares;

A man too happy for mortality!

So passed the time, till whether through effect Of some unguarded moment that dissolved Virtuous restraint—ah, speak it, think it, not! Deem rather that the fervent Youth, who saw So many bars between his present state And the dear haven where he wished to be In honourable wedlock with his Love, Was in his judgment tempted to decline To perilous weakness, and entrust his cause To nature for a happy end of all;

Deem that by such fond hope the Youth was swayed, And bear with their transgression, when I add

!

That Julia, wanting yet the name of wife,
Carried about her for a secret grief
The promise of a mother.

To conceal

The threatened shame, the parents of the Maid
Found means to hurry her away by night,

And unforewarned, that in some distant spot
She might remain shrouded in privacy,

Until the babe was born. When morning came,
The Lover, thus bereft, stung with his loss,
And all uncertain whither he should turn,
Chafed like a wild beast in the toils; but soon
Discovering traces of the fugitives,
Their steps he followed to the Maid's retreat.
Easily may the sequel be divined—
Walks to and fro-watchings at every hour;
And the fair Captive, who, whene'er she may,
Is busy at her casement as the swallow
Fluttering its pinions, almost within reach,
About the pendent nest, did thus espy
Her Lover!-thence a stolen interview,
Accomplished under friendly shade of night.

I pass the raptures of the pair;-such theme
Is, by innumerable poets, touched
In more delightful verse than skill of mine
Could fashion; chiefly by that darling bard
Who told of Juliet and her Romeo,

And of the lark's note heard before its time,
And of the streaks that laced the severing clouds
In the unrelenting east.-Through all her courts
The vacant city slept; the busy winds,
That keep no certain intervals of rest,
Moved not; meanwhile the galaxy displayed
Her fires, that like mysterious pulses beat
Aloft ;-momentous but uneasy bliss!

To their full hearts the universe seemed hung
On that brief meeting's slender filament !

They parted; and the generous Vaudracour Reached speedily the native threshold, bent On making (so the Lovers had agreed)

A sacrifice of birthright to attain

A final portion from his father's hand;

Persisted openly that death alone Should abrogate his human privilege Divine, of swearing everlasting truth, Upon the altar, to the Maid he loved.

"You shall be baffled in your mad intent If there be justice in the court of France," Muttered the Father.-From these words the Youth Conceived a terror; and, by night or day, Stirred nowhere without weapons, that full soon Found dreadful provocation: for at night When to his chamber he retired, attempt Was made to seize him by three armèd men, Acting, in furtherance of the father's will, Under a private signet of the State. One the rash Youth's ungovernable hand Slew, and as quickly to a second gave A perilous wound-he shuddered to behold The breathless corse; then peacefully resigned His person to the law, was lodged in prison, And wore the fetters of a criminal.

Have you observed a tuft of winged seed That, from the dandelion's naked stalk, Mounted aloft, is suffered not to use Its natural gifts for purposes of rest, Driven by the autumnal whirlwind to and fro Through the wide element? or have you marked The heavier substance of a leaf-clad bough, Within the vortex of a foaming flood, Tormented? by such aid you may conceive The perturbation that ensued ;--ah, no!

Desperate the Maid-the Youth is stained with

blood;

Unmatchable on earth is their disquiet!

Yet as the troubled seed and tortured bough

Is Man, subjected to despotic sway.

For him, by private influence with the Court, Was pardon gained, and liberty procured; But not without exaction of a pledge, Which liberty and love dispersed in air.

He flew to her from whom they would divide him— He clove to her who could not give him peace

Which granted, Bride and Bridegroom then would Yea, his first word of greeting was,-“All right

flee

To some remote and solitary place,
Shady as night, and beautiful as heaven,
Where they may live, with no one to behold
Their happiness, or to disturb their love.
But now of this no whisper; not the less,
If ever an obtrusive word were dropped
Touching the matter of his passion, still,
In his stern father's hearing, Vaudracour

Is gone from me; my lately-towering hopes,
To the least fibre of their lowest root,
Are withered; thou no longer canst be mine,

I thine the conscience-stricken must not woo
The unruffled Innocent,-I see thy face,
Behold thee, and my misery is complete!"

"One,are we not?" exclaimed the Maiden-"One, For innocence and youth, for weal and woe?"

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