ANGEL HELP.*

THIS rare tablet doth include
Poverty with sanctitude.

Past midnight this poor maid hath spun,
And yet the work is not half done,
Which must supply, from earnings scant,
A feeble bed-rid parent's want.

Her sleep-charged eyes exemption ask,
And holy hands take up the task;
Unseen the rock and spindle ply,
And do her earthly drudgery.

Sleep, saintly poor one, sleep, sleep on;
And, waking, find thy labours done.
Perchance she knows it by her dreams;
Her eye hath caught the golden gleams,
Angelic presence testifying,

That round her everywhere are flying;
Ostents from which she may presume,
That much of Heaven is in the room.
Skirting her own bright hair they run,
And to the sunny add more sun:
Now on that aged face they fix,
Streaming from the crucifix;

The flesh-clogg'd spirit disabusing,
Death-disarming sleeps infusing,
Prelibations, foretastes high,
And equal thoughts to live or die.
Gardener from bright Eden's bower,
Tend with care that lily flower;
To its leaves and root infuse
Heaven's sunshine, heaven's dews.

"Tis a type, and 'tis a pledge

Of a crowning privilege.

Careful as that lily flower,

This maid must keep her precious dower;
Live a sainted maid, or die

Martyr to virginity.

Suggested by a drawing in the possession of Charles Aders, Esq., m which is represented the legend of a poor female saint, who, having spun past midnight, to maintain a bed-rid mother, has fallen asleep from fatigue, and angels are finishing her work. In another part of the chamber an angel is tending a lily, the emblem of purity.

THE CHRISTENING.

ARRAY'D-a half-angelic sight-
In vests of pure baptismal white,
The mother to the font doth bring
The little helpless nameless thing,
With hushes soft and mild caressing,
At once to get a name and blessing.
Close by the babe the priest doth stand,
The cleansing water at his hand,
Which must assoil the soul within
From every stain of Adam's sin.
The infant eyes the mystic scenes,
Nor knows what all this wonder means;
And now he smiles, as if to say,
"I am a Christan made this day;"
Now frighted clings to nurse's hold,
Shrinking from the water cold,
Whose virtues, rightly understood,
Are, as Bethesda's waters, good.

Strange words-the world, the flesh, the devil

Poor babe, what can it know of evil?

But we must silently adore

Mysterious truths, and not explore.

Enough for him in after times,

When he shall read these artless rhymes,

If, looking back upon this day
With quiet conscience, he can say,
"I have in part redeem'd the pledge

Of my baptismal privilege;

And more and more, will strive to flee

All which my sponsors kind did then renounce for me."

ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN.

I SAW where in the shroud did lurk
A curious frame of nature's work.

A floweret crush'd in the bud,
A nameless piece of babyhood,
Was in her cradle coffin lying;

Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:
So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
For darker closets of the tomb!

She did but ope an eye, and put

A clear beam forth, then straight up shut
For the long dark, ne'er more to see
Through glasses of mortality.
Riddle of destiny, who can show
What thy short visit meant, or know
What thy errand here below?

Shall we say that Nature blind

Check'd her hand and changed her mind,
Just when she had exactly wrought
A finish'd pattern without fault?
Could she flag, or could she tire,

Or lack'd she the Promethean fire

(With her nine moons' long working sicken'd)
That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?
Limbs so firm, they seemed to assure
Life of health and days mature:
Woman's self in miniature!
Limbs so fair, they might supply
(Themselves now but cold imagery)
The sculptor to make beauty by.
Or did the stern-eyed fate descry,
That babe, or mother, one must die;
So in mercy left the stock,

And cut the branch; to save the shock
Of young years widow'd; and the pain,
When single state comes back again
To the lone man who, 'reft of wife,
Thenceforward drags a maimed life?
The economy of Heaven is dark;

And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark,
Why human buds, like this, should fall,
More brief than fly ephemeral,

That has his day; while shrivell'd crones
Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
And crabbed use the conscience sears
In sinners of a hundred years.
Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss

Rites which custom does impose,
Silver bells and baby clothes;
Coral redder than those lips,

Which pale death did late eclipse;

Music framed for infants' glee,

Whistle never tuned for thee;

Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them,
Loving hearts were they which gave them.
Let not one be missing; nurse,

See them laid upon the hearse
Of infant slain by doom perverse.
Why should kings and nobles have
Pictured trophies to their grave;
And we, churls, to thee deny
Thy pretty toys with thee to lie,
A more harmless vanity?

THE YOUNG CATECHIST.*

WHILE this tawny Ethiop prayeth,
Painter, who is she that stayeth
By, with skin of whitest lustre,
Sunny locks, a shining cluster,
Saint-like seeming to direct him
To the Power that must protect him?
Is she of the heaven-born three,

Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity;
Or some cherub?

They you mention

Far transcend my weak invention.

"Tis a simple Christian child,

Missionary young and mild,

From her stock of Scriptural knowledge;

Bible-taught without a college,

Which by reading she could gather,

Teaches him to say OUR FATHER
To the common Parent, who

Colour not respects, nor hue.
White and black in him have part,
Who looks not to the skin, but heart.

A picture by Henry Meyer, Esq.

CROWN me a cheerful goblet, while I pray
A blessing on thy years, young Isola;

Young, but no more a child. How swift have flown
To me thy girlish times, a woman grown

Beneath my heedless eyes! in vain I rack

My fancy to believe the almanac,

That speaks thee twenty-one.

Thou shouldst have still

Remain'd a child, and at thy sovereign will

Gamboll'd about our house, as in times past.

Ungrateful Emma, to grow up so fast,

Hastening to leave thy friends!-for which intent,
Fond runagate, be this thy punishment.

After some thirty years, spent in such bliss
As this earth can afford, where still we miss