THOMAS HOOD.

Is 't not enough to vex our souls
And fill our eyes, that we have set
Our love upon a rose's leaf,

Lo! here the best, the worst, the Our hearts upon a violet?

O clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art
mine,

And do not take my tears amiss;
For tears must flow to wash away
A thought that shows so stern as
this.

Forgive, if somewhile I forget,
In woe to come, the present bliss,
As frighted Proserpine let fall
Her flowers at the sight of Dis.
E'en so the dark and bright will
kiss;

The sunniest things throw sternest
shade;

And there is even a happiness
That makes the heart afraid!
Now let us with a spell invoke

The full-orbed moon to grieve our

eyes;

Her sighs and tears, and musings
holy!

There is no music in the life
That sounds with idiot laughter
solely;

There's not a string attuned to mirth.
But has its chord in melancholy.

TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS

MOTHER.

LOVE thy mother, little one!
Kiss and clasp her neck again,
Hereafter she may have a son
Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain.
Love thy mother, little one!

Not bright, not bright--but with a Gaze upon her living eyes,

cloud

Lapped all about her, let her rise
All pale and dim, as if from rest.
The ghost of the late buried sun
Had crept into the skies.
The moon! she is the source
sighs,

And mirror back her love for thee,
Hereafter thou may'st shudder sighs
To meet them when they cannot see.
Gaze upon her living eyes!

of Press her lips the while they glow
With love that they have often told,
Hereafter thou mayest press in woe,
And kiss them till thine own are cold,

The very face to make us sad,
If but to think in other times
The same calm, quiet look she had,
As if the world held nothing base,
Or vile and mean, or fierce and

bad

The same fair light that shone in

streams,

The fairy lamp that charmed the

lad;

For so it is, with spent delights
She taunts men's brains, and makes
them mad

Press her lips the while they glow!
Oh, revere her raven hair!
Too early Death, led on by Care,
Although it be not silver-gray-
May snatch save one dear lock away.

Oh! revere her raven hair!

Pray for her at eve and morn,
That Heaven may long the stroke
defer,-

For thou may'st live the hour forlorn

All things are touched with melan- When thou wilt ask to die with her.

choly,

Born of the secret soul's mistrust
To feel her fair ethereal wings
Weighed down with vile, degraded
dust.

Even the bright extremes of joy
Bring on conclusions of disgust-
Like the sweet blossoms of the
May,

Whose fragrance ends in must.
Oh, give her then her tribute just,

Pray for her at eve and morn!

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

I REMEMBER, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon;