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MATERNAL AFFECTION. 
•MOSS. 
Lycopodium. 
Language — MATERNAL AFEECTION. 
Sweet is the image of the brooding dove ! 
Hply as heaven a mother’s tender love ! 
The love of many prayers, and many tears, 
Which changes not with dim, declining years:— 
The only love, which, on this teeming earth, 
Asks no return for passion’s wayward birth. 
• Jins. Norton. 
I miss thee, my mother, when young health has fled, 
And I sink in the languor of pain. 
Where, where is the arm that once pillowed my head, 
And the ear that once heard me complain ? 
Other hands may support me, gentle accents may fall; 
For the fond and the true are still mine: 
I’ve a blessing for each ; I am grateful to all; 
But whose care can be soothing like thine ? 
E. Cook. 
Ah! blessed are they for whom, ’mid all their pains, 
That faithful and unaltered love remains ; 
Who, life wrecked round them, hunted from their rest, 
And by all else forsaken or distressed, 
Claim in one heart their sanctuary and shrine, 
As I, my mother, claimed my place in thine ! 
Ibid. 
