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PLEASURES OF HOPE.

CAMPBELL.

[EXTRACT.]

Lo at the couch where infant beauty sleeps, Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ; She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies, Smiles on her slumb'ring child with pensive eyes, And weaves a song of melancholy joy—

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Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy:
No ling'ring hour of sorrow shall be thine;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine;
Bright as his manly sire, the son shall be

In form and soul; but, ah! more blest than he!
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe this aching heart for all the past-
With
many a smile my solitude repay,

And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.

"And say, when summoned from the world and

thee,

I lay my head beneath the willow-tree,

Wilt thou, sweet mourner! at my stone appear

And soothe my parting spirit ling'ring near?

Oh! wilt thou come, at evening hour, to shed The tears of memory o'er my narrow bed? With aching temples on thy hand reclined, Muse on the last farewell I leave behind, Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low, And think on all my love, and all my woe?"

So speaks affection, ere the infant eye
Can look regard, or brighten in reply:
But when the cherub lip hath learned to claim
A mother's ear by that endearing name;
Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity, or a smile of love,

Or cons his murmuring task beneath her care,
Or lisps with holy look his evening prayer,
Or gazing, mutely pensive, sits to hear
The mournful ballad warbled in his ear;
How fondly looks admiring Hope the while,
At every artless tear and every smile!
How glows the joyous parent to descry
A guileless bosom, true to sympathy!

HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS.

N. P. WILLIS.

THE morning broke. Light stole upon the clouds
With a strange beauty. Earth received again
Its garment of a thousand dyes; and leaves,
And delicate blossoms, and the painted flowers,
And everything that bendeth to the dew,
And stirreth with the daylight, lifted up
Its beauty to the breath of that sweet morn.

All things are dark to sorrow; and the light,
And loveliness, and fragrant air were sad
To the dejected Hagar. The moist earth
Was pouring odours from its spicy pores,
And the young birds were carolling as life
Were a new thing to them; but, oh! it came
Upon her heart like discord, and she felt

How cruelly it tries a broken heart,
To see a mirth in anything it loves.

She stood at Abraham's tent.

Her lips were pressed

Till the blood left them; and the wandering veins
Of her transparent forehead were swelled out,
As if her pride would burst them. Her dark eye
Was clear and tearless, and the light of heaven,
Which made its language legible, shot back
From her long lashes, as it had been flame.
Her noble boy stood by her, with his hand
Clasped in her own, and his round delicate feet,
Scarce trained to balance on the tented floor,
Sandalled for journeying. He had looked up
Into his mother's face until he caught

The spirit there, and his young heart was swelling
Beneath his snowy bosom, and his form
Straightened up proudly in his tiny wrath,
As if his light proportions would have swelled,
Had they but matched his spirit, to the man.

Why bends the patriarch, as he cometh now,
Upon his staff so wearily? His beard
Is low upon his breast, and his high brow,
So written with the converse of his God,
Beareth the swollen vein of agony.

His lip is quivering, and his wonted step
Of vigour is not there; and, though the morn
Is passing fair and beautiful, he breathes
Its freshness as it were a pestilence.

Oh! man may bear with suffering: his heart
Is a strong thing, and godlike in the grasp

Of pain that wrings mortality: but tear
One chord affection clings to, part one tie
That binds him to a woman's delicate love,
And his great spirit yieldeth like a reed.

He gave to her the water and the bread,
But spoke no word, and trusted not himself
To look upon her face, but laid his hand
In silent blessing on the fair-haired boy,
And left her to her lot of loneliness.

Should Hagar weep? May slighted woman turn,

cheek

And, as a vine the oak hath shaken off,
Bend lightly to her tendencies again?
O no! by all her loveliness, by all
That makes life poetry and beauty, no!
Make her a slave; steal from her rosy
By needless jealousies: let the last star
Leave her a watcher by your couch of pain;
Wrong her by petulance, suspicion, all
That makes her cup a bitterness—yet give
One evidence of love, and earth has not
An emblem of devotedness like hers.
But, oh! estrange her once, it boots not how,
By wrong or silence, anything that tells
A change has come upon your tenderness,—
And there is not a high thing out of heaven
Her pride o'ermastereth not.

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