Felicia Hemans

“ It is a joyous hour when Eve breathes whispering through thy groves,
The hour that brings the son from toil, the hour the mother loves!
The hour the mother loves!—for me beloved it hath not been,
Yet ever in its purple smile thou smil'st, a blessed scene!
A scene whose beauty o'er my soul through distant years will come ”

“ Lives in Affection's tones.—He left not these.
— Happy are they that weep fresh tears to part
With all a mother's love!—a bitterer grief
Was his—to part unloved!—of her unloved
That should have breathed upon his heart, like Spring
Fostering its young faint flowers. ”

“ But there's more in late repentant love
Than steel may keep suppress'd.
And his tears brake forth, at last, like rain.—
Men held their breath in awe,
For his face was seen by his warrior-train,
And he reck'd not that they saw. ”

“ Ev'n as from warrior hearts, and on its edge,
Amidst the fern, and flowers, and moss-tufts deep,
There lay, as lull' d by stream and rustling sedge,
A youth—a graceful youth.—"Oh! dost thou sleep? ”

“ He that believes, is near the Holy then.
There shall each feeling, beautiful and high,
Keep the sweet promise of its earthly day—
Oh! fear thou not to dream with waking eye,
There lies deep meaning oft in childish play. ”

“ The body of Henry the Second lay in state in the Abbey-church of Fontevraud, where it was visited by Richard Cœur de Lion, who, on beholding it, was struck with horror and remorse, and reproached himself bitterly for that rebellious conduct which had been the means of bringing his Father to an untimely grave. ”

“ Ordinairement c'est la plus proche parente qui prononce le sien la première: après elle, les autres parentes, les amies, les simples voisines, toutes celles des femmes présentes qui peuvent payer au dèfunt ce tribut d'aflection.— Les Myriologues sont toujours composés et chantés par les femmes. ”

“ Various writers on Modern Greece have related the fate of those Suliote women, who threw themselves, with their infants, from the precipices of their mountainous territory, on the conquest and approach of Ali Pacha. ”

“ Tell them, our lives but of them are dreams!
Tell, how we sat in the gloom to pine,
And to watch for a step—but the step was thine!⁠F. H.
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⁠* "An early traveller mentions a people on the banks of the Mississippi, who burst into tears at the sight of a stranger. The reason of this is, that they fancy their deceased friends and relations to be only gone on a journey, and being in constant expectation of their return, look for them vainly amongst those foreign travellers."—Picart's Ceremonies and Religious Customs. ”