KEEPSAKES. Shepherd.-Few things in this weary warld sae delichtfu' as keepsakes! Nor do they ever, to my heart at least, nor to my een, ever lose their tender, their powerful charm! North. Of all keepsakes, memorials, relics, most tenderly, most dearly, most devoutly, James, do I love a little lock of hair!—and, oh! when the head it beautified has long mouldered in the dust, how spiritual seems the undying glossiness of the sole remaining ringlet! All else gone to nothing—save and except that soft, smooth, burnished, golden, and glorious fragment of the apparelling that once hung in clouds and sunshine over an angel's brow. Shepherd.-Ay, Sir; a lock o' hair, I agree wi’ you, is far better than ony pictur. It's a pairt o' the beloved object hersell-it belanged to the tresses that aften, lang, lang ago, may hae a' been suddenly dishevelled, like a shower o' sunbeams, ower your beatin' breast! But noo solemn thochts sadden the beauty ance sae bricht-sae refulgent—the langer you gaze on't, the mair and mair pensive grows the expression of the holy relic-it seems to say, almost upbraidingly, "Weep'st thou no more for me?" and then, indeed, a tear, true to the imperishable affection in which all nature seemed to rejoice, "when life itself was young," bears witness that the object towards which it yearned is no more forgotten, now that she has been dead for so many long weary years, than she was forgotten during an hour of absence, that came like a passing cloud between us and the sunshine of her living, her loving smiles. Noctes Ambrosianæ, from Blackwood's Magazine. THE filial band by which nature binds a man to his aged parent should only be severed by death. Like the white wand of Garter King at Arms, it should never be broken until it is dropped into the grave, upon the hollow-sounding coffin lid of its monarch. Anonymous. FAREWELL BEQUESTS. ERE the last fleeting ties of life are broken, Father thy high and stainless reputation By the pure diamond well may imaged be— Accept this ring-see how its radiation Casts round its neighbourhood a brilliancy. Within thy home I thus have honour'd dwelt, And when the world has praised me, I have felt That in its homage I should not partake, Mother-this locket thou wilt fondly cherish, One of my lavish store of auburn curls; Sister-receive this lute-its sprightly numbers Sing of the meetings of fond friends above, Brother-my little brother-thou hast tended By fostering walls from sudden blights and showers: Thus is thy childhood in its tender bloom Train'd with fond care, and kept from storm and gloom, Dear child, improvement daily strive to make, For thy kind parents' sake. I seek in vain one absent, erring brother, Alas, he wanders on a foreign sod; Yet when thou next shalt see him, give him, mother, Tell him his sister ask'd, in constant prayer, Loved ones-why gaze upon these gifts with sadness? That heritage was by my Saviour given, For man's poor sinful sake. Not mine alone those treasures of salvation, The precious boon extends, dear friend, to thee: Then mourn not for our transient separation, But, when I leave thee, think and speak of me, As of a freed one mounting to the skies, Call'd from the world of snares and vanities, Her place amid the blessed saints to take, For her Redeemer's sake. Mrs. Abdy. |