THE DEAD INFANT. A SKETCH. -"It is not dead, but sleepeth!” YES! this is Death! but in its fairest form, Yes! this is Death!--but like a cherub's sleep, Here might the sculptor gaze, until his hand The still, calm brow-the smile on either cheek, Proud Science, come! learn of this beauteous clay, That seems to mock the dread Destroyer's reign, As though in slumber's downy links it lay, Awaiting but the morn, to wake to life again! Yes! this is Death! but in its fairest form, That holds his revel-feast with frail mortality! THE ESCAPED CONVICT. BY CHARLES SWAIN. HE trod his native land, The bright land of the free; His forehead wore a seared brand- His brow-where youth and beauty met— He gazed upon the vale, Where spring-tide flowerets slept, Rock'd by the whispers of the gale; Like drops which page a storm they came, Morn sat upon the hills, But she look'd cold and dim; All, e'en his loved, his mother land, My sire! my sire! he groan'd; I hear all curse-I see all shun;- I saw her struck, whose cheek Whose eyes, whose form-but wherefore speak- 274 THE ESCAPED CONVICT. She loved me-she was sworn my bride; For this the record lies, For this-the rabble mock'd my cries; For this-half wither'd must I be, My own, my beauteous land, I ask'd but this, of Fate's stern hand- The Moon look'd on the vale, And soft display'd a form, that, pale, The Zephyrs drew a lengthen'd sigh, "Twas said, that lovely night, Gliding among the flowerets bright, The trees, and meadows green; And chiefly by a cot; and there THE LEGEND OF GENEVIEVE. BY DELTA. THE VISION. I CALL upon thee in the night, Thou stand'st before me silently, The spectre of the past; The trembling azure of thine eye, Calm as the pure and silent deep, When winds are hush'd and waves asleep. Thou gazest on me!—but thy look Of angel tenderness, So pierces, that I less can brook Around thee robes of snowy white, 276 THE LEGEND OF GENEVIEVE. The auburn hair is braided soft It would be crime, a double death But let me press that hand again, It is a dream, and thou art gone; To muse on days, when thou to me Oh! lonely is the lot of him, Whose path is on the earth, And when his thoughts are dark and dim, Hears only vacant mirth; A swallow left, when all his kind Have cross'd the seas and wing'd the wind. |