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THE WIDOWED MOTHER.

BY JOHN WILSON, ESQ.

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BESIDE her babe, who sweetly slept,
A widowed mother sat and wept
O'er years of love gone by;

And as the sobs thick-gathering came,
She murmured her dead husband's name
Mid that sad lullaby.

Well might that lullaby be sad,

For not one single friend she had

On this cold-hearted earth;

The sea will not give back its prey-
And they were wrapt in foreign clay
Who gave the orphan birth.

Steadfastly as a star doth look
Upon a little murmuring brook,
She gazed upon the bosom

And fair brow of her sleeping son,-
'O merciful heaven! when I am gone
'Thine is this earthly blossom!'

While thus she sat,-a sunbeam broke
Into the room;-the babe awoke,

And from his cradle smiled!

Ah! me! what kindling smiles met there!
I know not whether was more fair,
The mother or her child!

With joy fresh-sprung from short alarms, The smiler stretched his rosy arms,

And to her bosom leapt,

All tears at once were swept away,
And said a face as bright as day,-

'Forgive me! that I wept!'

Sufferings there are from nature sprung,
Ear hath not heard, nor poet's tongue
May venture to declare;
But this as holy-writ is sure,

'The grief's she bids us here endure
'She can herself repair!'

Blackwood's Magazine.

STANZAS.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

IN glowing youth, he stood beside
His native stream, and saw it glide
Shewing each gem beneath its tide,
Calm as though nought could break its rest,
Reflecting heaven on its breast,
And seeming, in its flow, to be
Like candour, peace, and piety.

When life began its brilliant dream,
His heart was like his native stream:
The wave-shrined gems could scarcely seem
Less hidden than each wish it knew ;
Its life flowed on as calmly too :

And heaven shielded it from sin,
To see itself reflected in.

He stood beside that stream again,
When years had fled in strife and pain;
He looked for its calm course in vain,-
For storms profaned its peaceful flow,
And clouds o'erhung its crystal brow :-
And turning then, he sighed to deem
His heart still like his native stream.

New Monthly Magazine.

LINES,

WRITTEN BY THE SEA SIDE.

BY WILLIAM JERDAN, ESQ.

HASTINGS, upon thy coast I stood,—
Still onward, onward rolled the flood:
'Tis trite, but who can see that strife
Of waves, nor think on human life?
Oh, awful likeness! how they pass,
A rippling undistinguished mass,
Fretting the surface, and no more,
Till lost upon the' oblivious shore.

And Fancy, how thou turn'st my brain!
I trace each billow of the main :
'Tis individual, and its span
Of being is like thine, O Man!

Mark ye that plumy-crested surge,
Its foaming courser forward urge;
Lashing the land, it spreads dismay,
The pebbles fly, the rocks give way :
That is the warrior fierce upreared,
Roaring to battle, ruthless, feared;
He's spent a whispering murmur all
That echoes his high-sounding fall.

Upon the sand that gentle wave
Delights in peaceful grace to lave,
The margin dents with flowing line,
While glittering planets o'er it shine:
That is the Bard, alas! to see
The impress of his harmony

And tuneful force, a moment's joy,

The next succeeding wave destroy.

Wearing and splashing through these rocks, Whose adamant the struggle mocks ;

In eddies whirled, in deep chasms lost,
Bubbling in straits, in spray up-tost;
Many an effort see they make,

And billows rise, and billows break :-
All worldlings these, who ceaseless boil
And labour on with noisy toil;
By difficulties some defied,

Die off the granite's reckless side;
While others, blest beyond desire,
Wind through, and on the shore expire!
Those burst, the haven ere they reach,
And these but perish on the beach.

How sweetly these round billows rise,
And undulate, while the breeze sighs
Above; their race seems youthful sport,
Flight and pursuit-they shun, they court-
Now parted, and to distance thrown,
And now commingled into one;

They swell but soon subside, and where
They were, a few small wavelets are ;

Or sooth to say, they brawl and flee,
One seeks the land, one floats to sea:
How like is this to human love,

As the young passions swell and move;
Coy dalliance, union, fond embrace,
Proud bound, and then a nameless place—
Or severed fates, away they go,—

No matter where they froth or flow.

Far off a hoary head I view,
Dropping salt rheum; 'tis ages hue,
And life's last tears. The sea-bird's breast
Is on the neighbouring calm imprest—

Ah, spirit's emblem! can it be,
But one faint struggle more, and he

Shall seek Heaven's element, like thee?

How blest, if so; for lo the gale,
Increasing, flaps the shuddering sail,
Wild ocean bellows loud, and fierce

The tempest sweeps, the drear winds pierce
With dismal howl, the waters rave,-
Nothing can scape the yawning grave;
And every mortal, wrecked, may know
There is no safety here below.

Ah me! my dream of WAVES is o'er ;
Another reflux bares the shore,
Another influx comes again,

And new each shape in, on, the main—
My heroes, lovers, bards, all fled,

Forgotten, traceless, vanished.

And Man, whence springs thy senseless pride? 'Tis but a CENTURY or a TIDE?

Literary Gazette.

COMPARISON.

THE lake lay hid in mist, and to the sand
The little billows hastened silently

Came sparkling on, in many a gladsome band,
Soon as they touched the shore all doomed to die.
I gazed upon them with a pensive eye,

For, on that dim and melancholy strand,

I saw the image of Man's destiny,

So hurry we right onwards thoughtlessly, Unto the coast of that Eternal Land.

Where, like the worthless billows in their glee,
The first faint touch unable to withstand,
We melt at once into eternity.

O Thou who weighest the waters in thine hand,
My awe-struck spirit puts her trust in thee.

Blackwood's Magazine.

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