The poems of John G. C. Brainard A new and authentic collection, with an original memoir of his life |
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LINES SUGGESTED BY A LATE OCCURRENCE. |
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 | The poems of John G. C. Brainard |  |
LINES SUGGESTED BY A LATE OCCURRENCE.
[_]
On the 21st of February, 1823, in the middle of the day, as the mail stage from Hartford to New Haven, with three passengers, was crossing the bridge at the foot of the hill near Durham, the bridge was carried away by the ice, and the stage was precipitated down a chasm of twenty feet. Two of the passengers were drowned: one of them had been long from home, and was on his way to see his friends. This occurrence is mentioned as explanatory of the following lines.
“How slow we drive!—but yet the hour will come,
When friends shall greet me with affection's kiss;
When, seated at my boyhood's happy home,
I shall enjoy a mild, contented bliss,
Not often met with in a world like this!
Then I shall see that brother, youngest born,
I used to play with in my sportiveness;
And, from a mother's holiest look, shall learn
A parent's thanks to God, for a loved son's return.
When friends shall greet me with affection's kiss;
When, seated at my boyhood's happy home,
I shall enjoy a mild, contented bliss,
Not often met with in a world like this!
Then I shall see that brother, youngest born,
I used to play with in my sportiveness;
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A parent's thanks to God, for a loved son's return.
“And there is one, who, with a downcast eye
Will be the last to welcome me; but yet
My memory tells me of a parting sigh,
And of a lid with tears of sorrow wet,
And how she bade me never to forget
A friend—and blushed.—O! I shall see again
The same kind look I saw, when last we met,
And parted. Tell me then that life is vain—
That joy, if met with once, is seldom met again.”
Will be the last to welcome me; but yet
My memory tells me of a parting sigh,
And of a lid with tears of sorrow wet,
And how she bade me never to forget
A friend—and blushed.—O! I shall see again
The same kind look I saw, when last we met,
And parted. Tell me then that life is vain—
That joy, if met with once, is seldom met again.”
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED] See ye not the falling, fallen mass?
Hark! hear ye not the drowning swimmer's cry?
Look on the ruin of the desperate pass!
Gaze at the hurried ice that rushes by,
Bearing a freight of woe and agony,
To that last haven where we all must go.—
Resistless as the stormy clouds that fly
Above our reach, is that dark stream below!—
May peace be in its ebb—there's ruin in its flow.
Hark! hear ye not the drowning swimmer's cry?
Look on the ruin of the desperate pass!
Gaze at the hurried ice that rushes by,
Bearing a freight of woe and agony,
To that last haven where we all must go.—
Resistless as the stormy clouds that fly
Above our reach, is that dark stream below!—
May peace be in its ebb—there's ruin in its flow.
| The poems of John G. C. Brainard | |