Martinsburg Gazette And Public Advertiser

POETRY.

From the New England Review,

ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD OF EXTRAORDINARY INTELLECT.

Dead?-
That infant eye that shone so bright
With intellectual fire;
So early seal'd in death's long night?
That spirit ray expire?
Never! though closed indeed the eye,
In everlasting sleep;
Its spirit beam can never die,
The fountain lies too deep.
O Death! at whose all chilling touch,
The fairest flowers decay;
Why dost thou always number such,
As first to fade away?
Why is it that thou searchest out
The loveliest below?
That what fond love entwines about,
Is always first to go?
Still, though that bud of hope be crushed,
That spirit from us riven;
That voice so musical, now hush'd,
Is eloquent in heaven;
Or can we wish pure souls to stay
In such a world as ours;
Confin'd within these cells of clay,
Which dampen all their powers
Should we withhold from Jesus' arms,
Those babes which are his own?
Should we give way to grief's alarms;
When they are from us gone?
Translated to a better land,
From this ungenial soil;
Where intellect may more expand,
Releas'd from sin's rude coil
Life? -'tis but a journeying hence,
To brighter scenes on high;
The Grave? -'tis but the gate from whence
They open on the eye
Death?-to the babe the morn of life,
Eternal, without sin or sighing;
Free from the sight the pang, the strife,
The mortal agony of dying
And if in sinless infancy,
The spirit flies away;
It goes from all that sorrow free.
Which others find that stay.
Still, lovely infant! yet awhile
We would detain thee here;
Though angels at thy coming smile,
We cannot check the tear.
A glow of intellect was thine,
Beyond thy infant days;
We hoped, alas! to see it shine,
With a maturer blaze.
And it is gone!--yes, vacant, dark,
The couch of its repose;
That cheek's last tinge, that eye's last spark,
Inform'd us when it rose.
How softly ebb'd that life away!
How still that spirit's flight!
Even as the star at break of day,
Melts in the brighter light.
Adieu, dear babe! we give thee up
To happiness and Heaven;
And drink with faith the bitter cup
That Providence hath given. C C T.