Art thou in the garden talking to a flower?
If the room be shaded,
And the day-spring faded,
Dost thou mock the chiming of the evening hour?
Thoughtful, blue-eyed beauty,
Dost thou know thy duty,
When thy mother prays thou'lt prove a honey- bee?
Do thy wild caressings
Mingle with her blessings,
Dost thou smile and whisper, mother I love thee?'
I am often dreaming
Of a taper, beaming
Near my babe's siesta, shaded by my hand:
Through thy fingers wreathing,
Comes such gentle breathing,
As might bear a hymn of praise from the seraph band.
Lord of life and kindness,
Let this veil of blindness
Veil of parent sorrow be thy dew o'er him;
May his lake of thinking,
Have no tide of sinking
May his deeds be rainbows never to grow dim!
May thy book of glory,
Teach him to write the story,
On the mental tablet, with a golden pen!
How the earth is swelling,
How the heavens are telling
Of thy love and goodness to the sons of men!
May it, 'mid his playing,
Bring those lips to praying;
May it, in his manhood, make a shield of thee;
May it in his dying,
Through the spirit's sighing,
Cause a cry for mercy-mercy, God, for me!
Oh! my boy, this fooling
Is not like the schooling
Earthly parents utter to the thing they love;
But iny health is failing;
And I've long been wailing
Wailing near the willows as a widow'd dove!
THE MERCHANT'S CLERK.
A TALE OF THE SEA.
Eight bells rang merrily out along the decks of a noble corvette, as she dashed gracefully on her way through the long seas and sparkling waves, in her course toward the Virgin Islands, whither she was bound on a cruise. A bright sky and a glorious moon were above her ; while her white canvass, as it rose pile upon pile, and bellied to the soft, but constant breeze, looked like wreaths of untrodden snow on a mountain's side, in the pale and mellow light.
