I gazed on those who soothed my toilsome youth
With woman's patience, tenderness, and truth,-
I gazed upon each dear and happy child,

And every brow returned my glance and smiled:-
Oh God! within my very grasp was placed

The cup of rapture

I was ne'er to taste.

A few short months, and I was once again
The most unhappy of unhappy men.
"My daughter!-let it pass!-whate'er thou art,
A father's blessing on thy broken heart;

But how I loved thee !-thou wert passing fair,
With glowing cheeks, dark eyes, and glossy hair,
And a sweet smile, where once was wildly blent
All that is beautiful and innocent,

A picture limned in Nature's softest mood,

But now all blotted o'er with tears and blood.

66

Dear children! I have learned at length to know

The gain of grief,-the blessedness of woe;

To feel that heavenly peace, vouchsafed alone
When all the blandishments of Earth are gone.

Yet long I struggled with the chastening rod,
Marvelling and murmuring at the ways of God,
Who seemed to shroud his smiles in wayward gloom,
And blight the hopes himself had bade to bloom;
I know Him now!-and ah! I know the heart,
That thus in mercy he ordained to smart,-
In mercy made each earthly prospect dim,
That it might centre all its love on Him.

"Yet 'twas a bitter lesson-and e'en now I feel the scars of that o'erwhelming blow,

Which, sudden as the lightning from above,
Blasted my paradise of earthly love.

Oh Rachel! often had we prayed that Heaven

Would grant us children :-and the boon was given,—

The fatal boon, with bitterest sorrow rife!

Heaven gave the children, but removed the wife.

Was it for this, all lovely as thou wert,
I won the treasure of thy virgin heart?
For this, a menial 'mid thy father's herd,
I bore the sickening pang of hope deferred;
Bore what youth's eager heart so hardly bears
In patient toil for two long weeks of years?
There, as I gazed upon thy cold pale face,
E'er yet I yielded thee to Earth's embrace,
How memory called her phantoms, till I seemed
To live again amid the scenes she dreamed;

With torturing accuracy rose to sight

Each half forgotten moment of delight,—

The smile, that blessed me when I met thee first,

The hope, in solitude and silence nursed,

The whispered vow, that made my passion known,

The blush, that told I did not love alone,

The tones of fondness, as we wandered wide

In lingering converse by the meadow's side,
The bridal day, the conjugal caress,

The o'erflowing cup of mutual happiness,

The dear domestic charms, that soothed and cheered,
Doubled each joy, and every sorrow shared !

Again I gazed!-I could not choose but hope
That those sealed eyelids to my glance would ope;
I kissed her cheek ;-that touch the vision sped;
And then I felt that joy and she were dead!

"I sought my father's home;-where she was not,

It seemed a sad and solitary spot:

Howbeit, though all its early glow was lost,

Though torn from all it loved and valued most,

The heart, by instinct, like the widowed vine,

Sought some fresh object where its strings might twine; And many offered:-but I scarce could bear

Another's image in my breast to wear,

Until at length to my despairing eyes

I saw her likeness in her son arise,

Her first-born son ;-the eye, whose light was bliss,

The high clear brow,-the shadowy hair was his,

The smile, like sunshine upon roses thrown,

The deep and touching tenderness of tone ;

I saw-I heard her!-from their icy chain

My chilled affections thawed to life again;-
Thawed like the mountain stream, and swept away

The bounds of duty in its headlong sway.
Yes, Joseph! madly I on thee bestowed

All that to man-half that to God I owed:

I felt no warmth,-no energy in prayer,
Unless thy name was fondly blended there;

I looked on forms that once my love had shared,

But owned no pleasure till thyself appeared.

"This could not last ;-and Heaven and Earth, alike

Wronged and insulted, raised the arm to strike.

It boots not now, when all its issue know,

Again to harrow up that tale of woe:

The bloody vest-the words, so cutting cold

From those who shared not in the griefs they told: