Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/357



Its gladness is never without alloy; Some pang from its best delights will rise; A wail still rings through its shouts of joy, And all its pleasures are clogg’d with sighs.

O’er every feast is the fear of doom; No sky so clear and serene, but may Be blacken’d and riven with storm and gloom Before the dawn of another day.

On that pure brow shall the trouble pass Of hopes deceived, and of haunting fears? Shall those blue eyes be bedimm’d, alas! By the bitter rain of regretful tears?

No, no! dear babe, through the fields of space Thou wilt fly with me to a brighter sphere; God will not exact, in His boundless grace, The days that else thou hadst linger’d here.