But at bedtime I trust he’ll remember to grease The bridge of his nose, and preserve his rupees From the premature clutch of his fond legatees; Or at least have no fees to pay any M. D.s For the cold his niece caught, sitting under the Trees. MOTHERHOOD. SHE laid it where the sunbeams fall Unscann’d upon the broken wall. Without a tear, without a groan, She laid it near a mighty stone, Which some rude swain had haply cast Thither in sport, long ages past, And Time with mosses had o’erlaid, And fenced with many a tall grassblade, And all about bid roses bloom And violets shed their soft perfume. There, in its cool and quiet bed, She set her burden down and fled: Nor flung, all eager to escape, One glance upon the perfect shape That lay, still warm and fresh and fair, But motionless and soundless there. No human eye had mark’d her pass Across the linden-shadow’d grass Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven: Only the innocent birds of heaven— The magpie, and the rook whose nest Swings as the elmtree waves his crest— And the lithe cricket, and the hoar And huge-limb’d hound that guards the door, Look’d on when, as a summer wind That, passing, leaves no trace behind, All unapparell’d, barefoot all, She ran to that old ruin’d wall, To leave upon the chill dank earth (For ah! she never knew its worth) ’Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling, And dews of night, that precious thing! And there it might have lain forlorn From morn till eve, from eve to morn: But that, by some wild impulse led, The mother, ere she turn’d and fled, One moment stood erect and high; Then pour’d into the silent sky A cry so jubilant, so strange, That Alice—as she strove to range Her rebel ringlets at her glass— Sprang up and gazed across the grass; Shook back those curls so fair to see, Clapp’d her soft hands in childish glee; And shriek’d—her sweet face all aglow, Her very limbs with rapture shaking— “My hen has laid an egg, I know; “And only hear the noise she’s making!” MYSTERY. I KNOW not if in others’ eyes She seem’d almost divine; But far beyond a doubt it lies That she did not in mine. Each common stone on which she trod I did not deem a pearl: Nay it is not a little odd How I abhorr’d that girl. We met at balls and picnics oft, Or on a drawingroom stair; My aunt invariably cough’d To warn me she was there: At croquet I was bid remark How queenly was her pose, As with stern glee she drew the dark Blue ball beneath her toes, And made the Red fly many a foot: Then calmly she would stoop, Smiling an angel smile, to put A partner through his hoop. At archery I was made observe That others aim’d more near. But none so tenderly could curve The elbow round the ear: