 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
THE APPROACH OF THE PESTILENCE.
I.
Let those who will, with anxious dread,The coming danger still deplore,
And, with dark boding fancies fed,
View all with fear that fills our shore;
Though not less fond of life than they,
And warmed by many a glowing hope,
Let me in calm the plague survey,
And with each threat'ning terror cope.
II.
Let me not watch, with idle fears,Long in advance, the approaching doom,
And, before Death himself appears,
Prepare the shroud and build the tomb;
But, with a heart securely calm,
Still on that Providence rely,
Which, if it blights, yet brings its balm,
And strengthens, though it bids us die.
III.
Still let me hold to that high truth,The best that God to man hath given,
To cheer in age, to teach in youth—
There is no certain hope but Heaven.
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That strikes the thousand, strikes at me,
And makes my fireside desolate,
And blights the bud and blasts the tree:
IV.
And from my fond affection rendsThe child that still my heart hath blest,
And robs my eyes of many friends,
At least 'twill give them peace and rest.
And though the fate thus comes, 'twill be
But the same fate we still should meet,
When time hath brought infirmity—
Without repair, without retreat.
V.
A few years lopt the human lotWill only lose us years of care,
Affection's blight, and Memory's blot,
And Love's defeat, and Hope's despair—
A fate no human skill can foil,
No place avert, no care evade—
A fate that brings release from toil,
And yields us mansions heavenly made.
VI.
Father! thus lesson'd, let my soul,In calm the coming stroke await;
Yet do thou still the plague control,
And lengthen life and limit fate;
And bid the stricken, sufferer live,
And bid the city smile, and take
The curse away, the crime forgive,
For weeping nature's, mercy's sake.
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |