YOUTH RENEWED.
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Bright, joyous little ones, whose eyes Were brimming over with their mirth;Their childish voices prattling there, Made sweetest music round the hearth.Though since their girlhood, time had borne Their daily lives so far apart,The early love was still as strong; Each lived within the other's heart.
Then silently grief's shadows fell Like chilling clouds upon each breast;Their little children tired of earth, And one by one were laid to rest.They drifted from their mothers' arms, Far over death's relentless waves;The summer blossoms drooped their heads In sadness on their little graves.
And in these darkened homes that God, So sorely, sadly had bereft,The loss was strangely equal; for To each, one only child was left.And now those early friends have met, After the lapse of twenty years;Met when their lives have learned to know The chastening love of grief and tears.
