Page images
PDF
EPUB

THY 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.

Its weakness in her arms to bear;
To cherish on her breast,

Feed it from Love's own fountain there,
And lull it there to rest;

Then while it slumbers watch its breath,

As if to guard from instant death;
This is a Mother's Love.

To mark its growth from day to day,

Its opening charms admire,

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

6

Ten thousand voices answer, No!'

Ye clasp your babes and kiss;

Your bosoms yearn, your eyes o'erflow;

Yet, ah! remember this ;

The infant, reared alone for earth,

May live, may die,

[blocks in formation]

Is this a Mother's love?

A parent's heart may prove a snare;
The child she loves so well,

Her hand may lead, with gentlest care,
Down the smooth road to hell;

Nourish its frame, destroy its mind; Thus do the blind mislead the blind, E'en with a Mother's Love.

Blessed infant! whom his mother taught
Early to seek the Lord,

And poured upon his dawning thought

The day-spring of the word; This was her lesson to her son,

Time is eternity begun :

Behold that Mother's Love.

Blessed Mother! who, in wisdom's path
By her own parent trod,

Thus taught her son to flee the wrath,
And know the fear of God:

Ah! youth, like him enjoy your prime,
Begin eternity in time,

Taught by that Mother's Love.

That Mother's Love!

- how sweet the name!

What was that Mother's Love?

The noblest, purest, tenderest flame,
That kindles from above

Within a heart of earthly mould
As much of heaven as heart can hold,
Nor through eternity grows cold:

This was that Mother's Love.

THY MOTHER'S WATCHFULNESS.

Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumb'ring child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy;
'Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy:
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine;
Bright as his manly sire, the son shall be

In form and soul; but, ah! more blest than he !
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe this aching heart for all the past;
With many a smile my solitude repay,

And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.

'And say, when summoned from the world and thee
I lay my head beneath the willow tree,
Wilt thou sweet mourner! at my stone appear,
And soothe my parted spirit ling'ring near?
Oh, wilt thou come, at evening hour, to shed
The tears of Memory o'er my narrow bed;
With aching temples on thy hand reclined,
Muse on the last farewell I leave behind,
Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low,
And think on all my love, and all my wo?'

So speaks affection, ere the infant eye
Can look regard, or brighten in reply;

But when the cherub lip hath learned to claim
A mother's ear by that endearing name;
Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity, or a smile of love,

Or cons his murm'ring task beneath her care,
Or lisps with holy look his ev'ning prayer,
Or gazing, mutely pensive, sits to hear
The mournful ballad warbled in his ear;
How fondly looks admiring Hope the while,
At every artless tear, and every smile!
How glows the joyous parent to descry
A guileless bosom, true to sympathy!

[ocr errors][merged small]

LET me exhort you in the days of youth to remember your Creator, from your being as yet uncorrupted by the world.

Although both scripture and experience testify that man is fallen, yet it is equally certain that our earliest passions are on the side of virtue, and that the good seed springs before the tares. Malice and envy are yet strangers to your bosom. Covetousness, that root of evil, hath not yet sprung up in your heart; the selfish, the wrathful and the licen

« PreviousContinue »