ughtful and a quiet grace:
Though happy still, yet chance distress
Hath left a pensive loveliness;
Fancy hath tamed her fairy gleams,
And thy heart broods o'er home-born dreams!
Thy smiles, slow-kindling now and mild,
Shower blessings on a darling child;
Thy motion slow and soft thy tread,
As if round thy hush'd infant's bed!
And when thou speak'st, thy melting tone,
That tells thy heart is all my own,
Sounds sweeter from the lapse of years,
With the wife's love, the mother's fears!

By thy glad youth and tranquil prime
Assured, I smile at hoary Time;
For thou art doom'd in age to know
The calm that wisdom steals from woe;
The holy pride of high intent,
The glory of a life well spent.
When, earth's affections nearly o'er,
With Peace behind and Faith before,
Thou render'st up again to God,
Untarnish'd by its frail abode,
Thy lustrous soul, then harp and hymn
From bands of sister seraphim,
Asleep will lay thee, till thine eye
Open in immortality.

PRAYER TO SLEEP.

O gentle Sleep! wilt thou lay thy head
For one little hour on thy lover's bed,
And none but the silent stars of night
Shall witness be to our delight?

Alas! 'tis said that the couch must be
Of the eider-down that is spread for thee,
So I in my sorrow must lie alone,
For mine, sweet Sleep! is a couch of stone.

Music to thee I know is dear;
Then the saddest of music is ever here,
For Grief sits with me in my cell,
And she is a syren who singeth well.

But thou, glad Sleep! lov'st gladsome airs,
And wilt only come to thy lover's prayers,
When the bells of merriment are ringing,
And bliss with liquid voice is singing.

Fair Sleep! so long in thy beauty woo'd,
No rival hast thou in my solitude,
Be mine, my love! and we two will lie
Embraced for ever, or awake to die!

Dear Sleep, farewell! hour, hour, hour, hour,
Will slowly bring on the gleam of morrow;
But thou art Joy's faithful paramour,
And lie wilt thou not in the arms of Sorrow.

DAVID WEBSTER.

David Webster was born in Dunblane, on the 25th September 1787. He was
the second of a family of eight children born to his parents, who
occupied the humbler condition of life. By his father, he was destined
for the Church, but the early death of this parent put a check o