 | Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne |  |
TO MY MOTHER.
Like streamlets to a silent sea,
These songs with varied motion
Flow from bright fancy's uplands free,
To Lethe's clouded ocean;
They lapse in deepening music down
The slopes of flower-lit meadows,
Nor dream, poor songs! how near them frown
Oblivion's rayless shadows!
These songs with varied motion
Flow from bright fancy's uplands free,
To Lethe's clouded ocean;
165
The slopes of flower-lit meadows,
Nor dream, poor songs! how near them frown
Oblivion's rayless shadows!
Yet though of brief and dubious life,
All wed to incompleteness,—
The voices of these lays are rife
With frail and fleeting sweetness;
One chord to make more full the strain,
One note I may not smother,
Is echoed in the heart's refrain
Which holds thy name, my mother!
All wed to incompleteness,—
The voices of these lays are rife
With frail and fleeting sweetness;
One chord to make more full the strain,
One note I may not smother,
Is echoed in the heart's refrain
Which holds thy name, my mother!
To thee my earliest verse I brought,
All wreathed in loves and roses,
Some glowing boyish fancy, fraught
With tender May-wind closes;
Thou did'st not taunt my fledgling song,
Nor view its flight with scorning:
“The bird,” thou saidst, “grown fleet and strong,
Might yet outsoar the morning!”
All wreathed in loves and roses,
Some glowing boyish fancy, fraught
With tender May-wind closes;
Thou did'st not taunt my fledgling song,
Nor view its flight with scorning:
“The bird,” thou saidst, “grown fleet and strong,
Might yet outsoar the morning!”
Ah me! between that hour and this,
Eternities seem flowing;
O'er hapless graves of youth and bliss
Dark cypress boughs are growing;
Our Fate hath dimmed with base alloy
The rich, pure gold of pleasure,
And changed the choral chant of joy
To care's heart-broken measure!
Eternities seem flowing;
O'er hapless graves of youth and bliss
Dark cypress boughs are growing;
Our Fate hath dimmed with base alloy
The rich, pure gold of pleasure,
And changed the choral chant of joy
To care's heart-broken measure!
But through it all,—the blight, the pall,
The stress of thunderous weather,
That God who keeps wild chance in thrall
Hath linked our lots together;
So, hand in hand, we sail the gloom,
Faith's mystic plummet casting
To sound the ways which end in bloom
Of Edens everlasting!
The stress of thunderous weather,
That God who keeps wild chance in thrall
Hath linked our lots together;
So, hand in hand, we sail the gloom,
Faith's mystic plummet casting
To sound the ways which end in bloom
Of Edens everlasting!
I bless thee, Dear, with reverent thought!
Pale face, and tresses hoary,
Whose every silvery thread hath caught
Some hint of heavenly glory;—
To thee, with trust assured, sublime,
Death's angel-call that waitest,
To thee, as once my earliest rhyme,
Lo! now, I bring—my latest!
Pale face, and tresses hoary,
Whose every silvery thread hath caught
Some hint of heavenly glory;—
To thee, with trust assured, sublime,
Death's angel-call that waitest,
To thee, as once my earliest rhyme,
Lo! now, I bring—my latest!
| Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne | |