Whiling all the weary hours
With the songs you used to sing
In those bright aerial bowers
Where the rainbow dips its wing?

Peri, no!- all woman-feeling
Pleads in that impassioned lay;
Yet 'tis woman proudly stealing
Some fond angel's harp away.

Mingling, with divine emotion,
Holy as a seraph's thought,
Human love and warm devotion,
Into rarest pathos wrought.

Sweep again the silver chords!
Pour the soul of music there;

Write, for your heart's tune, the words,
All our hearts will play the air!

Frances Sargent Osgood.

TO MY MOTHER.

O THOU, whose care sustained my infant years, And taught my prattling lip each note of love; Whose soothing voice breathed comfort to my fears,

And round my brow hope's brightest garland

wove ;

To thee my lay is due, the simplest song

Which Nature gave me at life's opening day; To thee these rude, these untaught strains belong, Whose heart indulgent will not spurn my lay.

O, say, amid this wilderness of life,

What bosom would have throbbed like thine

for me?

Who would have smiled responsive?

grief

who in

Would e'er have felt, and, feeling, grieved like thee?

Who would have guarded, with a falcon eye,

Each trembling footstep, or each sport of fear' Who would have marked my bosom bounding high,

And clasped me to her heart with love's bri t tear?

Who would have hung around my sleepless couch, And fanned, with anxious hand, my burning

brow?

Who would have fondly pressed my fevered lip, In all the agony of love and woe?

None but a mother-none but one like thee, Whose bloom has faded in the midnight watch; Whose eye, for me, has lost its witchery;

Whose form has felt Disease's mildew touch.

Yes, thou hast lighted me to health and life,
By the bright lustre of thy youthful bloom,—
Yes, thou hast wept so oft o'er every grief,

That woe hath traced thy brow with marks of gloom.

O, then, to thee, this rude and simple song, Which breathes of thankfulness and love for

thee,

To thee, my mother, shall this lay belong,
Whose life is spent in toil and care for me.

THE CHRISTIAN WOMAN.

O, BEAUTIFUL as morning in those hours
When, as her pathway lies along the hills,
Her golden fingers wake the dewy flowers,
And softly touch the waters of the rills,
Was she who walked more faintly day by day,
Till silently she perished by the way.

It was not hers to know that perfect heaven
Of passionate love returned by love as deep;
Not hers to sing the cradle-song at even,

Watching the beauty of her babe asleep; "Mother and brethren," these she had not known,

Save such as do the Father's will alone.

Yet found she something still for which to live, —
Hearths desolate, where angel-like she came,
And "little ones " to whom her hand could give
A cup of water in her Master's name;
And breaking hearts to bind away from death,
With the soft hand of pitying love and faith.