the reddest roses
From the tree you loved so well,
Passed them through the stern cold grating,
Gently bidding him 'Farewell!'

"Dazzled by the fragrant treasure
And the gentle voice he heard,
In the poor forlorn boy's spirit,
Joy, the sleeping Seraph, stirred;
In his hand he took the flowers,
In his heart the loving word.

"So he crept to his poor garret;
Poor no more, but rich and bright;
For the holy dreams of childhood--
Love, and Rest, and Hope, and Light--
Floated round the orphan's pillow
Through the starry summer night.

"Day dawned, yet the visions lasted;
All too weak to rise he lay;
Did he dream that none spake harshly,--
All were strangely kind that day?
Surely then his treasured roses
Must have charmed all ills away.

"And he smiled, though they were fading;
One by one their leaves were shed;
'Such bright things could never perish,
They would bloom again,' he said.
When the next day's sun had risen
Child and flowers both were dead.

"Know, dear little one, our Father
Will no gentle deed disdain;
Love on the cold earth beginning
Lives divine in Heaven again;
While the angel hearts that beat there
Still all tender thoughts retain."

So the angel ceased, and gently
O'er his little burden leant;
While the child gazed from the shining,
Loving eyes that o'er him bent,
To the blooming roses by him.
Wondering what that mystery meant.

Thus the radiant angel answered,
And with tender meaning smiled:
"Ere your childlike, loving spirit,
Sin and the hard world defiled,
God has given me leave to seek you,--
I was once that little child!"

* * * * *

In the churchyard of that city
Rose a tomb of marble rare,
Decked, as soon as Spring awakened,
With her buds and blossoms fair,--
And a humble grave beside it,--
No one knew who rested there.

_Adelaide A. Procter_.

[Illustration: _Kaulbach_.]

* * * * *

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