Constitutional Whig

Miscellaneous Department.

THE BURIAL: A FRAGMENT.

There was joy on earth-the twittering swallow, as it darted along in sunshine and shade, heeded not the bitter wailings of affliction and distress-the wild bird in its noiseless flight, softly silent as falls the snow flake, seemed unmindful of wo, as it flashed its wing across the vision, like the thought of a dream during the hushed hours of midnight, and vanished as suddenly. To me the sight of their joyous felicity brought no gladness--the sounds of their mirth fell cold upon the heart; it seemed but bitter mockery, and spoke of days departed. The bright and languishing skies seemed insensible that they were smiling over ruin and decay: that one of hope's fairest, sweetest flowers, had drooped and died; and now, even now, was to be laid in the earth's cold bosom.

I had seen the child in its guiltless beauty, when it was a thing all glowing with health, innocence and joy; I had seen it folded in the arms of her that bore it, in all the overwhelming fondness of a mother's love: I had heard that little voice ringing its joyful note like sweetest music; had seen those little hands stretched to the bosom of its mother, twining about her like tendrils round the parent stem. But now her blessing, her youngest, loveliest, slept, not on the soft bosom of a mother's tenderness, but with the quiet dead. That voice was hushed and silent as an unstrung harp! Death, death! how lovely canst thou be! Though pale and lifeless, it wore a smile passionless and pure as the cherub of immortality; it had nothing of the corpse about it, but its whiteness, nothing of the grave but its stillness. So beautiful he seemed, like the lamb decked with a flowery garland for the sacrifice. I could fain have laid down by its side, in the cold bosom of our common mother, on the dark and silent hill.

Thou weepest, fond mother--ah! well thou mayest. Hard is it for thee to lay thy loved one low in the damp earth, beneath the cold clods of the valley; hard is it to reflect that this thy child of peerless beauty, will never more raise its rosy lips to thine, in all the fondness of childhood's warm affection. Ah! these are recollections that weigh upon the soul, even to overpowering. Memory tells thee thou art desolate: it tells, too, of playful smiles, of a thousand soft and winning ways that twine around a mother's bosom; it tells of the sweet wild throbbings of unspeakable bliss, that were there when softly soothing him to slumber and repose. Now the foliage of the willow will be his shelter, and the narrow house his abiding place; the nursery will no more resound with his gladsome mirth; the cradle in which it had so oft reposed in quiet, is now desolate.

Thou weepest, fond mother.

The last look. The time is come when she may gaze once more on her sleeping boy, ere the pall is settled upon his lifeless brow. Oh! the bitter agony of that moment; one long burning kiss upon his marble forehead, and he is shut from her view.

No more, dearest boy, shalt thou lie,
With drowsy smile and half-shut eye
Pillow'd upon thy mother's breast,
Serenely sinking into rest--
For God hath laid thee down to sleep,
Like a pure pearl beneath the deep!

Look abroad, fond mother, on the ways of sinful men. and repine no more that God hath made thy child an angel in the regions of bliss. Now his song mingles with the thanksgiving of the blest! sanctified, safe and secure from the stormy blasts of iniquity, with him who is from everlasting.

The long train of weeping friends gathered around a fresh dug grave. The coffin was lowered into its final resting place, in that vale of solitude and silence; the spirit of him who was so lovely here, had, long ere this, crossed the dark waters, and is safely landed upon the flowery coast of a world of fadeless bloom.

Afterwards I stood by that little grave; the moon was beaming on it like his own pure spirit; the willows sighed above it as if it knew the pure, the beautiful was gone, and the green grass waved above him like the gentle billow o'er the pearled bubbles; and I wished that I too, could sleep so calmly, silently, by that sweet boy; I prayed that I too, might be as he is, passed from this vale of bitterness, sorrow and cares. The blood that blushed so beautifully in those little veins, was strange to mine, but I loved him better than a brother

Farewell, dear boy.