Past Help.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "TWICE LOST."

LET her lie upon your breast while she faints,
Where she slept such a short time ago.
O! she's young to be crowned with the saints:
Hold her fast, mother; do not let her go!

The roses are not dead on her cheeks,—

There is but a passing chill on their bloom; It will go when she smiles-when she speaks— Hush! was not that her voice in the room?

She is looking like a babe, as she lies

With her ringlets swept aside and apart'; Ah, mother, keep the tears in your eyes,— If they fall upon her face, she may start.

Did some one break her heart with a word,
Having grasped it at first as a prize?
Did she flutter from his hand like a bird,
Which goes a little way and then dies?

He remembers the joy of her face,

The love in her smile and the light,

When, shrinking, she met his embrace—

Bring him here; let him look at her to-night!

O! first came the wonder and the doubt,

And the pale hope fading day by day;

So wistfully she wandered about,

Like a lost child asking its way.

And then came the silence and despair,

And the sighing after wings like a dove, And the proud heart bleeding into prayer,

But hiding all its wounds from our love.

It is over, and the tale is all told,

And the white lamb lies dead in the frost :
We may cover up its limbs from the cold,
But we cannot find a life that is lost.

Yet we thought that she moved; but her check
Was but stirred by the breast where it lay
Heaving a little, while we speak,

With the mute sobs forcing their way.

Let them come, poor mother! let them come;
You must turn, when your tears are all done,

To a blank in the sweet talk at home,

And a name on a little gray stone.

S. M.

LONDON: PRINTED BY ROBSON AND LEVEY, GREAT NEW STREET, PETTER LANE, E C.