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DOMESTIC POEMS.

DOMESTIC POEMS.

THE homely hearth, the glowing, cheerful fire;
The busy thread by slender fingers plied;
The well recited theme of Poet's lyre,

Are deep, undying joys, denied

To halls where social love is chilled by stately pride.

RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD.

CHILDHOOD's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than light can give.
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below,
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know ;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades, and life forgets to charm;
Thee would the Muse invoke !--to thee belong
The sage's precept, and the poet's song.
What soften'd views thy magic glass reveals,

When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight steals!

As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play;
Thy temper'd gleams of happiness resign'd
Glance on the darken'd mirror of the mind.

The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn;
Unheard the shout that rent the noon-tide air,
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship, form'd and cherish'd here;
And not the lightest leaf, but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams!

Down by yon hazel copse, at evening blazed
The gipsy's fagot-there we stood and gazed;
Gazed on her sun-burnt face with silent awe,
Her tatter'd mantle and her hood of straw;
Her moving lips, her caldron brimming o’er;
The drowsy brood that on her back she bore,
Imps in the barn with mousing owlets bred,
From rifled roost at nightly revel fed;

Whose dark eyes flash'd through locks of blackest shade.
When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed:

And heroes fled the sibyl's mutter'd call,

Whose elfin prowess scaled the orchard wall.

As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew,
And traced the line of life with searching view,
How throbb'd my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears,
To learn the colour of my future years!

Ah, then, what honest triumph flush'd my breast; This truth once known--to bless is to be blest! We led the bending beggar on his way, (Bare were his feet, his tresses silver-gray,) Soothed the keen pangs his aged spirit felt, And on his tale with mute attention dwelt: As in his scrip we dropp'd our little store, And sighed to think that little was no more, [live!" He breathed his prayer, "Long may such goodness 'Twas all he gave,-'twas all he had to give.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

A MOTHER'S love-how sweet the name!

What is a mother's love?

-A noble, pure, and tender flame,
Enkindled from above,

To bless a heart of earthly mould;
The warmest love that can grow cold;
This is a mother's love.

To bring a helpless babe to light,
Then, while it lies forlorn,
To gaze upon that dearest sight,

And feel herself new-born,
In its existence lose her own,
And live and breathe in it alone;

This is a mother's love.

ROGERS.

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