"I do, I do believe,” she said, and calmly knelt down. She prayed long and fervently, and, on rising up, felt her mind composed and prepared, gently repeating to herself, "only believe." Taking the candle, she entered her child's room: she gazed at its little smiling lips, the eyes just shining through their long dark eyelashes; and the rosy cheek, which pressed the swelling pillow beneath it; and was quite happy. Margaret was still looking at her sleeping child, when a voice was heard at the cottage door.

A SKETCH,

BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Thy own sweet smiles I see,

The same that oft in childhood solac'd me, The meek intelligence of those dear eyes." Cowper, to his Mother's Picture.

A SKETCH,

BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

IN THE DULWICH GALLERY.

WHAT, in the dim and melancholy gloom
Of this lone chamber, meets my anxious gaze?
I see a tender mother, whose fond arms
Enfold an infant, on whose wasted cheek

The rose of health seems dying. O'er his brow
The delicate blue veins are seen to throb
In languid agony. Its burning heat
Still unallay'd, although, with gentlest touch,
His mother's cool white fingers clasp his brow.
The drooping eye-lids heavily hang down,
But not with slumber, in that torpid doze,
Reposing never. Ah! how powerless

His pale hand falls-yet every feature smiles
With gentlest patience, which incessant pain
Would vainly banish.-In the mother's look

How many feelings mingle! I can see
That hope, and firm believing piety,
With agonizing doubt, have struggled long;
Hard was the conflict, but they overcame;
And a mild trembling confidence in God,
The God of the afflicted, brightens there.

Whose is the shadowy form which dimly lurks In the dark chamber's far obscurity?

'Tis stealing hither. Ah! I know thee now: Terrific sovereign! wer't thou then so near? Must the sweet infant leave that fond embrace For thy chill circling arms?-Breathing corrupt

tion,

So soon must thy foul fest'ring lips be given
For the pure kisses of maternal love?
Nearer, and nearer still, thy deadly shaft

Aim'd at th' unconscious infant's naked breastCanst thou not see? Dost thou not feel, sad mother?

Death, Death is near thee, and thy tender child Is all unshielded from his fatal dart.

How canst thou sit unmov'd, unshrinking there, As stupified with woe?

*

He lives he lives-an angel guards the child; An angel interposes, shining forth