ME OF REST!

Oh, for a home of rest!
Time lags alone so slow, so wearily;
Couldst thou but smile on me, I should be blest.
Alas, alas! that never more may be.
Oh, for the sky-lark's wing to soar to thee!

This earth I would forsake
For starry realms whose sky's forever fair;
_There_, tears are shed not, hearts will cease to ache,
And sorrow's plaintive voice shall never break
The heavenly stillness that is reigning there.

Life's every charm has fled,
The world is all a wilderness to me;
"For thou art numbered with the silent dead."
Oh, how my heart o'er this dark thought has bled!
How I have longed for wings to follow thee!

In visions of the night
With angel smile thou beckon'st me away,
Pointing to worlds where hope is free from blight;
And then a cloud comes o'er that brow of light,
Seeming to chide me for my long delay.

1829. E. P. K.

LIFE'S STAGES.

To the heart of trusting childhood life is all a gilded way,
Wherein a beam of sunny bliss forever seems to play;
It roams about delightedly through pleasure's roseate bower,
And gaily makes a playmate, too, of every bird and flower;
Holds with the rushing of the winds companionship awhile,
And, on the tempest's darkest brow, discerns a brightening smile,
Converses with the babbling waves, as on their way they wend,
And sees, in everything it meets, the features of a friend.
"To-day" is full of rosy joy, "to-morrow" is not here:
When, for an uncreated hour, was childhood known to fear?
Not until hopes, warm hopes, its heart a treasure-house have made,
Like summer flowers to bloom awhile, like them, alas, to fade;
Cherished too fondly and too long, for ah! the rich parterre,
Crushed in its brightest blossoming, leaves but a desert there.

This is life's second stage; the gloss of springtime has passed o'er,
The trusting bosom is deceived, but still it trusts the more;
Its young affections are bound up within a mother's love,
And oh! if blessings ever yet descended from above
And rested on an earthly tie to mark approval given,
A mother's love, assuredly, is sanctioned thus by Heaven.
But soon the ruthless spoiler comes, and all its trust is vain:
The eye that beamed so kindly once, will ne'er unclose again;
The voice of love that still could soothe when all its hopes were o'er,
Alas! th