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BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

Of God’s sweet goodness stirring at her heart,
She bless’d her beautiful boy, and to his way
Committed him. And he went lightly on,
With his soft hands press’d closely to the cool _
Stone vessel, and his little naked feet

Lifted with watchful care; and o’er the hills,
And through the light green hollows where the lambs
Go for the tender grass, he kept his way,
Wiling its distance with his simple thoughts,
Till, in the wilderness of sheaves, with brows
Throbbing with heat, he set his burden down.

Childhood is restless ever, and the boy

Stay’d not within the shadow of the tree,

But with a joyous industry went forth

Into the reaper’s places, and bound up

His tiny sheaves, and plaited cunningly

The pliant withs out of the shining straw—

Cheering their labor on, till they forgot

The heat and weariness of their stooping toil

In the beguiling of his playful mirth.
resently he was silent, and his eye

Closed as with dizzy pain; and with his hand

Press'd hard upon his forehead, and his breast

Heaving with the suppression of a cry,

He utter’d a faint murmur, and fell back

Upon the loosen’d sheaf, insensible.

They bore him to his mother, and he lay

Upon her knees till noon—and then he died!

She had watch’d every breath, and kept her hand
Soft on his forehead, and gazed in upon

The dreamy languor of his listless eye,

_ And she had laid back all his sunny curls

And kiss’d his delicate lip, and lifted him

Into her bosom, till her heart grew strong—
His beauty was so unlike death! She lean’d
Over him now, that she might catch the low
Sweet music of his breath, that she had learn’d
To love when he was slumbering at her side
In his unconscious infancy—

“—So still!
‘Tis asoft sleep! How beautiful he lies,

_ With his fair forehead, and the rosy veins

Playing so freshly in his sunny cheek!