The tale I tell was told me long ago;

Yet mirthful ones, since heard, have passed away,

While this still wakens memory's fondest glow,

And feelings fresh as those of yesterday:

’Twas told me by a man whose hairs were grey,

Whose brow bore token of the lapse of years,

Yet o’er his heart affection's gentle sway

Maintained that lingering spell which age endears,

And while he told his tale his eyes were dim with tears.

But not with tears of sorrow;—for the eye

Is often wet with joy and gratitude;

And well his faltering voice, and tear, and sigh,

Declared a heart by thankfulness subdued:

Brief feelings of regret might there intrude,

Like clouds which shade awhile the moon's fair light;

But meek submission soon her power renewed,

And patient smiles, by tears but made more bright,

Confessed that God's decree was wise, and good, and right.

It was a winter's evening;—clear, but still:

Bright was the fire, and bright the silvery beam

Of the fair moon shone on the window-sill,

And parlour-floor;—the softly mingled gleam

Of fire and moonlight suited well a theme

Of pensive converse, unallied to gloom;

Ours varied like the subjects of a dream;

And turned, at last, upon the silent tomb,

Earth's goal for hoary age, and beauty's smiling bloom.

We talked of life's last hour,—the varied forms

And features it assumes;—how some men die

As sets the sun when dark clouds threaten storms,

And starless night; others whose evening sky

Resembles those which to the outward eye

Seem full of promise:—and with softened tone,

At seasons checked by no ungrateful sigh,

The death of one sweet grand-child of his own

Was by that hoary man most tenderly made known.

She was, he said, a fair and lovely child

As ever parent could desire to see,

Or seeing, fondly love; of manners mild,

Affections gentle,—even in her glee,

Her very mirth from levity was free;

But her more common mood of mind was one

Thoughtful beyond her early age, for she