I miss the glances of the eye,
    The old familiar tone,—­
  And feel indeed, the widow’s home
    Is desolate and lone.

  And when we gather round the board,
    There’s each one’s vacant chair;
  And, oh, I miss them every hour—­
    And miss them everywhere.

  But still there must be changes,
    While time is stealing by,
  Alternate sun and shadow
    Will flit across the sky.

To Mrs. J. C. Bucklin, by Her Father.

My child, why weepest thou?  Are these drawn lines of sorrow alone thy garlands?  Why this dreary awe, this languishing on all around you?  But hush, these are the foot-prints of Death; he has indeed been with you in his uncertain rounds.  The deep, reposing influences indicate his path.  I will not dare to question a mother’s love, so strange and inexplicable in power, and so mysterious in operation, gentle as the breathing of the memory, ungovernable as the whirlwind in its frenzy, tender as the angel of sympathy, yet stronger than the bands of Death, it is painful to witness such a cloud of sorrow resting on one so young as you, without an atheistic questioning, the all-wise purposes of our Father in heaven.

  Your own lovely babe you so fondly adored,
  Death’s torn from the heart of her mother,
  So full was your soul of a mother’s deep love,
  You would gladly have died to restore her. 
      Poor fragile, fading, short-lived flow’r,
      She was bright and lovely for an hour.

To The Reader.

And now, courteous reader, perchance thou art weary with thy wanderings, and the flowers we have gathered may appear withered to thee, and devoid of beauty or fragrance, and the peep into memory’s inner chambers may not have afforded thee the pleasure that I have derived from the survey.  If so, farewell, I will intrude no more upon thy time or patience.  The curtain has fallen, the dim, misty curtain, and memory has turned her golden key, closed her portfolio, and sat down with folded hands, to brood over her hoarded treasures, placing each in its proper place, to be brought forward again at her mandate, to beguile, perchance, other weary midnight hours with their magic spell.  The past cannot be redeemed, and the future is hid in uncertainty; but the present, the golden present is ours, and while our little bark is floating upon the stream of time, let us improve the precious moments as they fly, and spend them in a cultivation of the best affections of the human mind.  The mind, that boundless ocean of human thought that is placed within each individual, stretching on throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity.  But there must come a solemn time to all who live.  Death is upon our track, and will surely soon overtake us, and our decaying bodies must be hid forever from sight beneath the clods of the valley:  but these minds shall then live, and happy they who, by a cultivation of the best principles of our nature, have an antepast of heaven while upon earth.