The poems of Richard Henry Stoddard :: :: University of Virginia Library

I am followed by a spirit,
In my sorrow and my mirth;
'T is the spirit of an infant,
Dying almost at its birth,
Unlamented, yet how dear,
Since, unseen, I know 't is near.

324

Would, if only for a moment,
As I feel it, I could see,
In the light of heavenly beauty,
Sitting on its father's knee:
It would dry this hopeless tear,
Dropping now, it is so near!

[What shall I sing, and how]

What shall I sing, and how,
Of what I suffer now?
To nature trust, or art,
The burden of my heart?

'T is three weeks now, but three,
Since he was here with me:
The dreadful time has flown,
And now I am alone.

I left him in the morn,
(Not knowing how forlorn,)
There in his little bed,
Weak, sick, but O not dead!

When I came back at noon,
(Too late, and yet so soon,)
They met me on the stairs,
Like Judgment unawares!

I stopped. “Your Will is dead!”
“It cannot be,” I said.
It could, it was—ah, why?
What had he done to die?

325

I knelt beside his bed,
I kissed his royal head,
His hand, his feet, his arm—
The body yet was warm!

I wept! But did I weep?
Or was my grief too deep?
I only know I cursed;
Pray Heaven that was the worst!

And shall I sing of this?
Or of the dark abyss
In which I grope apart,
Hugging my broken heart?

Not now, whatever I may
In some far distant day;
Enough what here appears,
Drowned in these bitter tears!

[The Christmas-time drew slowly near]

The Christmas-time drew slowly near,
The happy days we loved to see;
Thrice had we had a Christmas-tree,
The evergreen of all the year.

“What have you brought me?” asked the boy
When I came home at night; and I
Made some, I know not what, reply,
The promise of a future toy.

“You must not ask me any more,”
I said at last; “but wait and see,
When Christmas comes, your Christmas-tree,
For you shall have it as before.”

326

We meant to have a tiny one,
With pendent toys, and lighted boughs;
But darkness fell upon the house,
For Death, in passing, took my son.

Nathless he had his Christmas-tree,
For pines within the graveyard stand,
Above his bed of yellow sand,
Beside the moaning of the sea.

[I sit in my lonesome chamber]

I sit in my lonesome chamber
This stilly, winter night,
In the midst of quaint old volumes,
With the cheery fire in sight.

In the darkened room behind me
My darling lies asleep,
Worn out with constant weeping,
'Tis now my turn to weep.

What do I weep for? Nothing.
Or a very common thing;
That the little boy I loved so,
Like a dove has taken wing.

He used to sleep beside us,
In reach of his mother's hand;
They have moved his bed, ah, whither?
They have made him one in the sand!

Why didn't they make mine, also?
I'm sure I want to go:
But no, I must live for his mother,
For she needs me still, I know.

327

For her I must bear my sorrow,
Nor weep, when she can see;
She grieves too much already,
To waste a sigh for me.

[You think, I see it by your looks]

You think, I see it by your looks,
That I am buried in my books,
Wherein, as when he lived, I find
As easy solace for my mind.

It is not so. I try, indeed,
What charmed me once again to read;
Page after page I turn in vain,
They leave no meaning in my brain.

I see the words; they come and go,
In dark procession, sad and slow,
Like mourners at a funeral,
I know who lies beneath the pall!

I dally with my books, and why?
Read you the reason in my eye.
Because I would do more than weep;
Grief, even for him, may be too deep.

Had I been taken, what would he,
Dear heart, be doing now for me?
His few tears dried, (the blow being new
We'll grant he sheds a tear or two,)

He would have smiled as heretofore,
And soon have talked of me no more;
Like other little orphan boys,
He would be playing with his toys.

328

Should I, a child of larger growth,
(You know you called us children, both,)
Be, in my grief, less wise than he?
Or you be harder, love, with me?

Then chide not, as you have to-day,
For poring o'er my books, but say,
“His ways remind me of the boy's;
For see, he's playing with his toys.”

[What shall we do when those we love]

What shall we do when those we love
Are gone to their seraphic rest?
Since we must live, what life is best
Before the clearer eyes above?

Shall we recall them as they were,
The day, the hour, the dreadful blow
That, dealt in darkness, laid them low,
The coffin and the sepulchre?

Or shall we rather (say, we can,)
Be what we used to be of old?
Work, one for love, and one for gold,
The tender woman, worldly man?

Shall we be jealous if the heart
Lets go a moment of its dead?
Mistrust it, and revile the head,
And say to all but Death, “Depart?”

Or shall we willing be to take
What good we may in common things,
Blue skies, the sea, a bird that sings,
And other hearts that do not break?

329

What God approves, methinks, I know
(If aught we do approved can be,)
But since my child was taken from me,
My only pleasure is in woe:

My tortured heart, my frenzied head,
For when, as now, a smile appears,
I would be drowned in endless tears,
Or, happier, with my darling—dead!

[We sat by the cheerless fireside]

We sat by the cheerless fireside,
Mother, and you, and I;
All thinking of our darling,
And sad enough to die.

He lay in his little coffin,
In the room adjoining ours,
A Christmas wreath on his bosom,
His brow in a band of flowers.

“We bury the boy to-morrow,”
I said, or seemed to say;
“Would I could keep it from coming
By lengthening out to-day!

Why can't I sit by the fireside,
As I am sitting now,
And feel my gray hairs thinning,
And the wrinkles on my brow?

God keep him there in his coffin
Till the years have rolled away!
If he must be buried to-morrow,
O let me die to-day!”

330

[It looks in at the window]

It looks in at the window,
Divinely bright and far,
The loving star of Venus,
Our little Willy's star.

He used to watch its rising,
As we have done to-night,
Its lustrous, steel-blue twinkle,
Its steady heart of light.

“O mamma, there is Venus!”
Methinks I hear him cry,
As he leads us to the window,
To watch his brighter eye.

And once we saw him kneeling
Before it, in his chair,
Folding his hands together,
And making some sweet prayer.

What did he ask you, Venus?
To take his soul away?
Or, feeling he must leave us,
Perhaps he prayed to stay.

God knows; you cannot tell us,
And he is gone afar;
And we are left in sorrow,
To gaze upon his star!

331

[What shall I do next summer]

What shall I do next summer,
What will become of me
When I draw near my cottage,
Beside the solemn sea?

Along the dusty roadside
I shall not see him run,
To greet his loving father,
So proud to meet his son.

No longer in the distance
I'll strain my eager eyes,
To catch him at the window,
And mark his sweet surprise.

The gate how can I enter?
How bear to touch the door
That opens in the chambers
Where he is seen no more?

When last I crossed the threshold
(I'm glad I did not take
His dear dead body thither,)
I thought my heart would break.

“My son was here last summer,
He sat in yonder chair;
And there, beside the window,
I kissed his golden hair!”

With every sweet remembrance
There came a burst of tears;
There is but one such tempest
In all our stormy years.

332

I kissed the chair he sat in,
The spot his feet had trod;
I clutched the empty darkness
To pluck him back from God.

O ruined heart and hearth-stone!
What will become of me,
In my deserted dwelling
Beside the dreadful sea?

[When first he died there was no day]

When first he died there was no day
That was not saddened by my tears.
“And 't will be thus,” I said, “for years;
His memory cannot fade away.”

That first wild burst of grief is o'er,
The spring is sealed of wretchedness;
Not that I love my darling less,
But love, or think of, others more.

They move me as they could not then,
My brain at least, if not my heart;
And so I try to act my part
As patiently as lesser men.

Pale fathers pass me in the street,
Whose little sons, like mine, are dead;
I see it in the drooping head,
And in the wandering of the feet.

333

The dreary winter days are past

The dreary winter days are past,
The cloudy sky, the bitter blast:
Gone is the snow, the sleet
That glazed each rugged street.

All things proclaim that Spring is near,
Rejoicing in the wakened Year:
Even I, whose tears are shed
Above the Winter dead.

Darker than now my death can be,
In that it took my boy from me,
My heart it did not wring
Like this first breath of Spring.

What though the clouds were thick o'erhead,
And earth was iron to my tread,
Rains poured, snows whirled, winds blew,
And my great grief was new?

'T was still—if not a solace, yet
Something akin that laid regret:
It hushed my useless moan
To think I was alone.

When drove the snow, the thought would rise,
“It does not blind his little eyes!”
When winds were sharp I smiled,
“They cannot stab my child!”

Now Spring is come, I sigh and say,
“He cannot see this sunny day,
Nor feel this balmy air
That longs to kiss his hair!”

334

The tender spirit of the hour
That stirs the sap, and paints the flower,
Enfolding land and sea,
And quickening even me,

So stings my soul, I hold my breath,
And try to break the dream of death,
And stagger on his track
Until I snatch him back!

Great God! If he should feel it there,
(Where, where—some angel tell me where?)
And struggle so for me,
How terrible 't would be!

[Out of the deeps of heaven]

Out of the deeps of heaven
A bird has flown to my door,
As twice in the ripening summers
Its mates have flown before.

Why it has flown to my dwelling
Nor it nor I may know;
And only the silent angels
Can tell when it shall go.

That it will not straightway vanish,
But fold its wings with me,
And sing in the greenest branches
Till the axe is laid to the tree,

Is the prayer of my love and terror,
For my soul is sore distrest,
Lest I wake some dreadful morning,
And find but its empty nest!