THE PET LAMB.

———

BY ALEXANDER A. IRVINE.

———

I saw her in her artlessness

All innocent and free,

And playfully a favored lamb

She fondled on her knee—

She seemed a vision of a dream,

A glory passing bright,

A being clothed in loveliness

As angels are in light!

Her tresses sported round about

Her snowy brow divine,

As flowers of the daffodil

Embrace a virgin shrine,—

Such purity was nestled there,

A Sybil’s it might be,

Forever beaming placidly

As starlight down at sea!

Her smile it had a witchery

To mortal ones unknown,

A language in its mirthfulness

Beyond a seraph’s tone:

It was as if the soul had come

From out its deep recess

And chose a dwelling in her eyes,

So pure their loveliness!

And softly on her pearly cheek

The dewy lashes lay;

Her lips were parted temptingly

To woo the breeze to stay;

Her snowy neck all droopingly

Defied the lily’s grace;

Her dimpled mouth—I dreamt of heav’n

In gazing on that face!

She fondled artlessly her pet;

She raised his tiny feet;

And toyed the garland on his neck;

And soothed him, when he bleat,

So sweetly that I might not hear

Unmoved that silver tone,

But longed to leave my hiding place

And woo her for my own.

A shot re-echoed through the wood,

I saw the smoky wreath—

The lamb was bleeding in her lap

The glancing ball beneath—

I sprang and raised the sufferer

And staunched the ebbing tide,

And carefully I bound the wound,

And sat me by her side.

I quieted her quick alarm,

I gently soothed her fears,

And o’er the dying favorite

We mingled tears with tears:

I shared her grief, and calmed her woe,

And blamed the sportsman rude—

She raised her swimming eyes to mine

And smiled her gratitude.

She faintly smiled and dropped her gaze,

Her passive hand I took,

No word was spoke, we only heard

The murmur of the brook;

Her gaze was on the murdered lamb,

Her heart was strangely moved—

She sighed, and oh! the loss she felt,

The void where once she loved.

Again I soothed her maiden grief,

And sighed whene’er she sighed,

And with such winning sympathy

Her starting tears I dried,—

And when she ceased I sighed myself,

And she besought to know

All artlessly and innocent

The secret of my woe.

I told her it was all herself,

That I had paused to gaze,

And that her witching loveliness

Would sadden all my days;

And then I sighed, and looked away,

And told her how I grieved,

Not for myself, but for the pang

Her gentle heart received.

I asked her but to pity me,

And told my grief to part—

Her fingers trembled, and I heard

The beating of her heart,

And all dissolved in sympathy

She yielded to my side—

Was ever virgin love as thine?

My Rosalie, my bride!