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But my mother from thine arms was torn,
And laid beneath the cold and silent tomb.
I felt 'twere wrong to leave thee thus alone.

Yet, Rodolph was unchanged; and when the storms
Of adverse fortune drove us from our home,
To seek a shelter in a foreign clime,

I saw the tear-drop gather in his eye;

He clasped my hand convulsively in his,

And whispered, "Ella, thou shalt yet be mine."
Three long and weary years since then have passed,
And he perchance ere this hath wooed and won
A lovelier maiden. Oh, how I have prayed
And struggled to forget him, but in vain.
She ceased. The old man with attentive ear
Had listened to the long suspected cause
Of that deep sorrow, which too well he knew
Had nipp'd the rose-bud in its tender bloom,
And doomed his idol to an early grave.
Oh, what a sacrifice, he groaned aloud;
God bless thee, Ella; I have ill repaid
A love so holy and so pure as thine.
"Twas then a traveler on his jaded steed
Paused at that dwelling, and in breathless haste
Flew up the narrow staircase; hope and fear
Alternate whispering to his anxious heart.
The old man's last words fell upon his ear:
It is enough, he cried; thank heaven she lives!
And springing forward, in his trembling arms
He clasped that dying girl, now but the wreck
Of what he once had deemed so beautiful.
It was too late. One long and lingering gaze
From those deep eyes of mild ethereal blue,
And with her head pillowed upon his breast,
And his dear name upon her quivering lip,
Her gentle spirit passed from earth away,
With scarce a sigh to tell that she had gone.

AUTUMN.

BY MISS MARGARET BELCHES,

Of the Indiana Institution for the Blind.*

I come, I come, o'er valley and hill,

Casting a shade o'er the sparkling rill,

Stripping the leaves from each quivering bough,
Strewing my pathway as onward I go.

The tree of the forest, the grass of the plain,
Submissively bow to my despotic reign ;
The flow'rets that bloom in the garden and heath,
All wither and droop at the touch of my breath.

I come not as spring with its gifts profuse,
Decking the earth with its gorgeous hues;
Scattering blossoms like glittering gems,
More precious than those of earth's diadems.

The hum of the insect, the song of the bird,
No more in the glades of the forest are heard;
Though silent I tread, yet my footprints are seen
In the withering herbage wherever I've been.

I come not as spring, with its long sunny hours,
Decking the earth with its verdure and flowers;
I come to forewarn the mortal who clings
To the perishing phantom of temporal things.

I come to admonish the children of clay,
To turn from a world of death and decay;
To seek for a portion more lasting and sure,
In the land of the blest, the just, and the pure.

*It may be interesting to the reader, to know that this authoress dictated her poems to a deaf and dumb sister, her usual amanuensis, by means of the manual alphabet.

Where the smile of the Lord is his people's delight; Where the soul is untouched by a canker or blight; Where the heart's best affections forever shall bloom, Beyond the dark valley of death and the tomb.

THE DYING SISTER.

BY MARGARET BELCHES.

Sister! I'm going home; a voice of love,
In dreams was gently murmured in my ear,
Like angel whispers, echo'd from above,

It bade me haste from all that binds me here;
Sweet, as of plaintive music soft and low-
Sister, oh let me go!

They stood around my bed a shining band,
And on their heavenly pinions far away

They bore me swiftly to a radiant land

To realms of endless bliss and cloudless day;

There flowers of fadeless beauty sweetly blow-
Sister, oh let me go!

Bright was the starry pathway that we trod,
Surpassing fair the scenes that met our eyes;
Countless the hosts before the throne of God,
In that fair world of peace beyond the skies;
And music filled the air in ceaseless flow-
Sister, oh let me go!

I saw them, too, the loved, the lost of earth,
The cherished ones who watched our infant years,
Who smiled upon us in our hours of mirth,
Whose soothing words oft checked our rising tears;

They smiled on me as none now smile below-
Sister, oh let me go!

Our sister, too, was there with radiant brow,
She of the sunny smile and dove-like eye,
The beautiful on earth, far lovelier now,
Arrayed in light and immortality;

She whispered come, in heavenly accents low-
Sister, oh let me go!

And he was there, the wanderer from the fold,
For whom so oft in agony we prayed;
But on his brow no stain of earthly mould,
Not as on earth, in sin's dark vestures 'rayed;
His shining robes were white as spotless snow-
Sister, oh let me go!

Death's seal is set upon this fevered brow,
O'er these dim eyes the gathering shadows come;
Heaven's zephyrs seem to play around me now,
And woo me to my far-off distant home;

None view such scenes and longer dwell below-
Sister, farewell, I go!

THE FOREST TREE.

BY MARGARET BELCHES.

Tree of the forest, gigantic and old,

What ages unreck'd of have over thee rolled;

Oh, could'st thou but tell us each varying scene

That long since has passed 'neath thy branches of green.

Thou hast seen the glad summer in beauty approach,
And the woods wake in smiles at her magical touch,
When the soft wind swept over the delicate flowers,
Fresh laden with sweets from the tropical bowers.

Thou hast shivered and tossed in the whirlwind's blast,
And seen thy companions uptorn as it pass'd;
And still thou art rearing thy old rugged form,
To smile on the summer and frown on the storm.

The king of the forest, long, long hast thou stood,
The pride of the desert and vast solitude,
Ere the step of the white man the wilderness stirred,
Or his sharp ringing axe in the forest was heard.

In days long gone by, how often perchance,
Hast thou looked on the Indians' wild, native dance;
Or marked the deep scowl of his red, gleaming eye,
As he glared on his victim, and doomed him to die.

Thou hast seen the pale captive, and heard his wild shriek,
Which told of the anguish that words might not speak,
As he saw through the darkness the red, glaring fire,
And knew while he gazed 'twas his funeral pyre.

But away with those scenes of darkness and blood,
Sweet sounds are now heard in thy once solitude;
The laughter of childhood in innocent glee,
Blends sweet with the husbandman's song on the lea.

Perchance thou hast seen on bright summer eves,
When the zephyr was stirring thy dark, glossy leaves,
A maiden steal forth with a timorous eye,
And a blush on her cheek, for her lover was nigh.

And there she has listened to love's magic tone,
Believing his heart was as true as her own;
But, alas! she was seeking an undying love,
Which only is found in the regions above.

The wayworn traveler hails with delight
The mantling shade as you rise on his sight
And sinks to repose on the green mossy bec
Which oft in his childhood has pillowed hi. ad

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