LITTLE WILLIE.

———

BY MRS. H. MARION STEPHENS.

———

My beautiful—my beautiful,

Upon thy baby brow,

The stern, relentless hand of death

Has placed his signet now!

The golden threads that span thy life,

Are breaking, one by one;

Let me not hold his spirit back⁠—

Oh, God! thy will be done!

My beautiful—my beautiful!

Thy life has been a dream;

A moment more, and it has passed,

Like sunshine on a stream;

Or like a bud, whose perfumed leaves

Unfolded for an hour,

To gaze with rapture on its God⁠—

Then droop beneath his power.

My beautiful—my beautiful!

I would not call thee back;

I joy that thou hast fled the storms

That beat upon life’s track;

I love to know thy sinless soul

Has burst its bonds of clay,

And watch thy spirit as it glides

So pleasantly away.

And when I gather up the folds

Around thy pale, cold face,

And when I weep to see thee laid

In thy last resting-place,

I’ll mind me that the fearful storm

By which my soul is riven,

Has borne my dove an olive branch,

And wafted him to Heaven.