Or that he coursed a park with females fraught,
Who would not run except they might be caught;
Or in the thicket laid some wily snare
To take the rabbit or the purblind hare;
Or taught his dog to catch the climbing kid ;
Thus shepherds do, and thus she thought he did.
IFE is a stream that winds its way
To the great ocean ceaselessly,
At first through meadows smooth and gay,
Where summer breezes lightly play,
And birds make jocund harmony.
Anon it flows more broad and deep,
With stronger current to the sea ;
The o'erhanging rocks are stark and steep,
And up the pass the night-winds sweep,
And pant and howl at liberty.
But nightly always on its breast
The stars of heaven come out and shine;
Below they glance and never rest,
But seem above so self-possessed,
Their glancing lights make life divine.
DEATH AND BURIAL OF A CHILD AT SEA.
DEATH AND BURIAL OF A CHILD AT SEA.
PY boy refused his food, forgot to play,
And sickened on the waters day by day:
He smiled more seldom on his mother's smile,
He prattled less in accents void of guile,
Of that wild land, beyond the golden wave,
Where I, not he, was doomed to be a slave;
Cold o'er his limbs the listless languor grew,
Dulness came o'er his eye of placid blue;
Pale mourned the lily where the rose had died,
And timid, trembling, came he to my side.
He was my all on earth. Oh, who can speak
The anxious mother's too prophetic woe,
Who sees death feeding on her dear child's cheek,
And strives in vain to think it is not so?
Ah! many a sad and sleepless night I passed
O'er his couch, listening in the pausing blast;
While on his brow, more sad from hour to hour,
Drooped wan dejection, like a fading flower!
At length my boy seemed better, and I slept,-
Ah! soundly-but methought, my mother wept
O'er her poor Emma: and, in accents low,
Said, "Ah! why do I weep, and weep in vain
For one so loved, so lost? Emma, thy pain
Draws to a close; even now is rent in twain
The loveliest link that binds thy breast to woe;
Soon, broken heart, we soon shall meet again!"
Then o'er my face her freezing hand she crossed,
And bending, kissed me with her lip of frost.
DEATH AND BURIAL OF A CHILD AT SEA.
I waked and at my side-oh, still and cold,
Ah! what a tale that dreadful chillness told!
Shrieking, I started up in terror wild:
Alas! and had I lived to dread my child?
Eager I snatched him from his swinging bed,
His limbs were stiff, he moved not, he was dead.
Oh, let me weep! what mother would not weep
To see her child committed to the deep?
No mournful flowers, by weeping fondness laid,
Nor pink, nor rose, dropped on his breast, displayed ;
Nor half-blown daisy in his little hand :—
Wide was the field around, but 'twas not land.
Enamoured death, with sweetly pensive grace,
Gave awful beauty to his silent face;
No more his sad eye looked me into tears;
Closed was that eye beneath his cold, pale brow,
And on his calm lips, which had lost their glow,
But which, though pale, seemed half-unclosed to speak,
Loitered a smile, like moonlight on the snow.
I gazed upon him still, not wild with fears;
Gone were my fears, and present was despair.
But as I gazed, a little lock of hair
Stirred by the breeze, played trembling on his cheek ;
Oh, God-my heart, I thought life still was there!
But to commit to the watery grave,
O'er which the winds, unwearied mourners, rave,
One, who strove darkly sorrow's sob to stay,
Upraised the body; thrice I bade him stay,
For still my wordless woe had much to say;
And still I bent and gazed, and gazing, wept.
DEATH AND BURIAL OF A CHILD AT SEA.
At last my sisters, with humane constraint,
Held me, and I was calm as dying saint;
While that stern weeper lowered into the sea
My ill-starred boy :-deep, buried deep, he slept.
And then I looked to heaven in agony,
And prayed to end my pilgrimage of pain,
That I might meet my beauteous boy again.
Ah, had he lived to reach this wretched land,
And then expired, I would have blessed the strand;
But where my poor boy lies, I may not lie;
I cannot come with broken heart to sigh
O'er his loved dust, and strew with flowers his turf;
His pillow hath no cover but the surf;
I may not pour the tear-drop from mine eye
Near his cold bed; he slumbers in the wave;
Oh, I will love the sea because it is his grave!
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