Wilmington Expositor

A MOTHER'S GRAVE.

No marvel that poets have chosen home and their native land, as grateful themes of song. In themselves, the words are full of melody: in their associations they form exquisite music. It is a blessed thing to have a heaven of rest where love lights its beacon and keeps its vigils to greet the returning wanderer, weary of a cheerless pilgrimage by flood or field. God help those for whom every country wears a foreign aspect—who avert their steps from the dwelling of their fathers, banished by the clouds of discord, or the rank weeds of desolation.

Pleasant to me, as the face of an early friend, were the broken shores of my country, and the wide opening bay which was in full view before us. The vessel touched at a well known sea-port, where my luggage was consigned to the care of Jonathan, who was to make a short stay there with a relation: as it was but two days' journey to my native village, I proceeded direct and on foot. Spring was in its prime. The morn I started was as rosy as the matin flush of midsummer: the virgin breath of the meadows, and gardens, through which the road meandered, gave lightness to the bosom, elasticity to the footstep. The vine-branches were shooting forth their infant foliage, and orchard after orchard, ever and anon, enriched the breeze with a tide of fragrance, inspiring, in the fervour of noon-day, a voluptuous languor. Gladsome to the eye that expatiates on nature is the matronal beauty of the blossoming apple-tree; surpassingly gladsome was it to me, just landed from the waters in the country of my birth, where I had from childhood, been encircled by its peaceful glories. The hues of sunset were glowingly interstreaked, varying from the warmest crimson to the tenderest green, and in their wavy irradications imparted to western sky the fanciful resemblance of a superb ocean-shell. Tired of travel, I came in sight of the rustic chapel where I used to go up with our house, to worship. My feet were blistered, my shoes arid with dust. I turned into the cool, grassy purifying-ground to calm the flutter of my spirits, to rest my limbs, and to refresh my soiled apparel, lest a chance encounter with an acquaintance should betray my pedestrian return. The chapel had been white-washed and re-painted, and peering through its shade of larch and yew, presented a soothing emblem of Christian tranquility.

Time, place, and circumstance, were masters of my mood. I did not wish to dispel the religious awe that solemnised the soul: and from a respectful reverence for those who slept beneath, I refrained from profaning the luxuriant herbage by the taint of the highway. I passed to the lonely spot where, apart from the rest, beneath a weeping willow, was my mother's grave. The shrubs which surrounded it were flourishing; no unseemly weed had permission to vegetate there—the birds nestled in the branches of the over-shadowing tree, secure of protection near the remains of her who was meek and merciful to all the creatures of God. The moss-covered headstone had been displaced by one of recent construction. In addition to the simple consecration to the memory of the departed, it bore the inscription of "Blessed are they who die in the Lord." I bared my brow, pressed my lip and cheek to the name of my parent cut in the cold slab, and prayed that her dove-like spirit might resume its ascendency over my father, whom, like her I loved, but who, unlike her, I dreaded.