26 DEATH OF AN INFANT. DEATH OF AN INFANT. Death found strange beauty on that cherub brow, There had been a murmuring sound, With which the babe would claim its mother's ear, The spoiler set His seal of silence. But there beam'd a smile L. SIGOURNEY. Humility does not consist in telling our faults, but in bearing to be told of them. THE ALPINE RHODODENDRON. 27 THE ALPINE RHODODENDRON. [RAFFLES alludes to this beautiful shrub "mingling its little crimson blossoms with the scanty herbage which clothes the mountains, rising almost perpendicularly from the sides of the glacier on the summit of Montanvert."] Gem of the Alps! 'tis strange to trace Glad'ning the "solitary place" With unexpected glow. Yet, bright one! cold thy bed must be, Would thou wert planted in the bower And rocked to slumber by the gale "Oh, tell me not of valley fair, Where sweeter flow'rets bloom, I too have sun and healthful air 28 THE ALPINE RHODODENDRON. Deem'st thou these snows scarce fitting bower O know, that One, whose will is power, He spake me into being,-shed His sunshine on my alpine bed, Bade the strong blast which shook the pine And gently reared my early bloom, 'Mid snows which else had been my tomb. View in this mountain's frozen breast An emblem true of thine, So cold, so hard, till on it rest A beam of light divine. Feel'st thou this life-inspiring ray? If not, then upward look and pray Would deep within thine heart embower A brighter far than earthly flower. MORAL OF FLOWERS. REGARD DUE TO THE FEELINGS OF OTHERS. 29 REGARD DUE TO THE FEELINGS OF OTHERS. There is a plant, that in its cell And bends its stalk and folds its leaves And thus there is a conscious nerve That from the rash and careless hand Sinks and retires distrest. The pressure rude, the touch severe, A nameless thrill, a secret tear, Oh, A torture undefined. you who are by nature form'd, Each thought refined to know! Repress the word, the glance that wakes That trembling nerve to woe. 30 A MOTHER'S LOVE. And be it still your joy to raise Whene'er you see the feeling mind, And though the cell be ne'er so low, L. HUNTLEY. A MOTHER'S LOVE. [Translated from the Portugese, by F. HEMANS.] The brightness of a mother's love Can never pass away, It watcheth, like the brooding dove, It sitteth by the couch of pain With quiet placid eye; "T is free from every dark'ning stain Of man's infirmity. |