University of Virginia Library

Glimmering amid the shadowy shapes that float
In sickly Fancy's vision o'er the walls
Of Death's lone room, the trembling taper burns
Dimly, and guides my fearful eye to trace
The wandering track of parting life upon
The burning brow and sallow cheek of him
Whose smile was paradise to me and mine.
The autumnal wind breathes pantingly and comes
With hollow sighs through yon high window o'er
Thy feverish couch, my love! and seems to sob
Amid the waving curtains as't would tell
My heart how desolate it will become
When left in its lone widowhood to weep
And wail and agonize at Memory's tale.
The outward air is chill, but, oh, thy breast,
My dying love! is scorching with the fires
That centre in thy heart, and thy hot breath
Heaves sobbingly, like the sirocco gale
That heralds death; and thou art speechless now
Save what thy glaring eyes can tell, for life
Is parting from thy bosom silently.
Thy pulse is wild and wandering, and thy limbs
Are writhing in convulsive agony,
And, while thy spirit hovers o'er the verge
Of Fate, thou canst not speak to me nor bid
Thy chosen one a long farewell! O Heaven!
Let thy sweet mercy wait upon his end
And life's last struggle close—'tis vain to hope
For life—then take his soul on gentle wing
Away, and let the sufferer rest with Thee!
Alas! hath He who rules the universe
Replied to my wild wish? oh, give me back
The spirit of my love for one brief hour—'tis o'er!
'Tis o'er! my love, my happiness, my hope.
I sit beside a corse! How deadly still
Is the lone chamber he hath left! The moan
Of dying nature, and the bursting sigh
Of a heart breaking, and the murmuring voice
Of a delirious spirit—all are hushed!
The eye that kindled love in my young heart
And told me I was blessed, is lustreless—
And those dear lips, that oft illumed my soul,
Are stiffening now; those features exquisite,
On which I often gazed as on a mirror
Beaming with beauty, genius, feeling—all
That love adores and honor sanctifies,
Collapse in their dread slumbers and assume
The ashen deadliness of soulless dust.
And must it be, my love! that thou wilt sleep
Where I can never watch thy wants and glide
Around, thy gentle minister? No more
Read voiceless wishes in thy pleading eye
And soothingly discharge them? Art thou gone,
Or is it but a dream? O thou dost dwell
Within my heart unchangeably as wont
And ever wilt!—I sit beside the Dead
Alone, while round me the world is bent
On pleasure—on a shadow from the dust!
The bright blue wave of Hudson rolls below
My solitary view and sounds of joy
Fling music o'er its waters and the voice
Of gayety is rising on my ear,—
Like banquet mirth amid the pyramids.
O the full consciousness of utter loss!
The single wretchedness of cureless woe
While all around are gay! The chaos wild
Of billowy thought, on whose tumultuous tides
Hopes, powers and passions—all the elements
Of heart and soul in foamy whirlpools toss
'Till whelmed in ruin!—Lovely babe! thou hast
No father now, and where, my orphan child!
Will close our wanderings? I have no home
For thee, dove of the storm without an ark
To bear thee o'er the waters of the Waste!
Cold, voiceless mansion of my ruined love!
I'll close thine eyes and kiss thy pallid lips.
And watch beside thee for the livelong night—
The last, last night I shall behold thy form!
O agony, and they will bury thee!
Will snatch thee from the pillow of my heart,
And lay thee in the damp unbreathing tomb!
Sleep, my sweet child! thou knowest not the pain
Of the sad bosom that thou slumberest on.
It is some joy that thou feel'st not the loss
Of him who would have worshipped his firstborn.
The world is silent round me; pale the moon
Gleams on the clay-shut eyes of him who loved
Her gentle light in life, and o'er his cold,
Collapsed, unchanging, melancholy face
Plays her transparent beam of love. My heart!
Thy bleeding tears would drown my soul, if yet
One being lived not in my life to tell
How dear he was to me. Farewell, my love!
Our slumbers now will be no more as wont!
Yet e'en in paradise thou wilt behold
Thine earthly love and bend from heaven to shed
Immortal hopes o'er nature's funeral urn.
[OMITTED]
[OMITTED]
Days, weeks and months passed o'er me and were seen
Vanishing away with that pale, meek content
Which doth exist, against the spirit's will,
So glad was I to feel that burden, Time,
Dropping from my pierced heart; for I did live
Among, but yet not with the living—tears
Suppressed within the fountains of the soul,
Congealed like waters in deep cavern-halls.
My being passed 'mid shadows, and the things
Familiar once assumed or unknown form
Or appendage unknown, and to my eye
The faces erst beloved appeared like those
Imagination images in dreams;
And oft I feared to speak, lest I should be
Abandoned to my woe; and, if I spake,
My voice re-echoed round me like the cries
Of shipwrecked mariners at night. My brain
Was fevered with my dreadful anguish, which
Grew by repression, like the Rebel Flower,
Until it mastered reason, or whate'er
Name that observant faculty doth bear
Whose power is o'er the visible universe.
There was a dread unmeasured, in my thought,
A vague idea of something horrible,
And I lived on like one in broken sleep,
Forever searching for some lost companion,
And wandering in mazes dark as doom,
Where the heart faints and fails, and hope expires.
Yet amid all the estranging of my love
I still clung to my child; a mother's heart
Retains its deep devotion to her dear
And pang-bought offspring, when the woman's mind
Is laid in ruins; and her bosom burns
With love instinctive for an innocent
And lovely creature whom her spirit knows
Only as something worthy to be loved.
Folding the orphan to my heart, I went
Abroad the mansion witlessly, and searched
Its chambers desolate, and then returned
In wildered disappointment that the thing
I looked for could no where be found.—I sat
In the lone winter nights before the dim
And melancholy embers, and did hush
My breath while listening for the tread of him
Who ever spent his evenings with his love
In social converse;—but he came not, so
I sighed and murmured to my prattling babe
That he would soon return; but then I thought
That he had gone to a far land and left
His duties to my care and faithful watch.
And so I oped his escritoir and saw
His papers, pens and pencils and all things
Reposed e'en as he left them, and I felt
That I could not arrange them otherwise
If they were wrong;—his closet then I searched
And there his vestments hung familiarly
And appositely arrayed.—I returned
From such short wanderings sad, and sometimes thought
My love had told me he should dwell no more
Upon the earth—and then my heart did feel
As if it floated in a lava sea.
Thus passed my strange existence from the day
He died until disease my infant laid
Upon his suffering couch, and I became
His sleepless watcher. Long I sat beside
The lovely one, attending all his wants
And sick caprices uncomplainingly,
Yet all unconscious that he was my son,
Till one said he was dying—then there flashed
Through my dark spirit thoughts long dead, and tears
Quenched the dull fire that burned upon my brain.
And left my heart's fair path a desert way,
Calm though 'twas dreary. Life hath direful ills
And woes and sufferings, but the fiercest lie
In madness, e'er in dread of heaven and earth.
It cannot weep—it doth not think, and yet
It hath both tears and thoughts, the one of blood,
Of pangs the other; all its feelings coil
Like serpents round the heart and sting the core
Unceasingly, and all the sweet ideas
Of love and friendship round the racked brain twine
Like knotted adders, venomous and blind.
Pierce, O thou Holy One! the heart, but spare
The spirit! Let thy judgments fall upon
The affections, but preserve the immortal soul!
My child was spared me; and the tale I tell
Was gathered from the loved ones who beheld
But could not soothe my agony, and those
Impressions I retain of sights and sounds
That floated by me in bewilderment.
[OMITTED]
It was the Sabbath's herald eve; and pained
With melancholy musings, such as hearts
Bleeding with sorrow nourish, forth I went
To gaze on nature's pensive face and smile
Of virgin softness, and I felt the sense
Of her deep loveliness stealing o'er my woes
While watching her pure countenance, now veil'd
In moonlight and her changeful robes of green,
Azure and silver-blended, while she looked
Like one who was to me what angels are
To paradise—the living fount of joy.
A diamond star was floating 'mid the waves
Of pearl, that danced along the silver wake
Of Dian's bark, and it did seem like love
Adorning innocence; while in the midst
Of ether hung the rosy isles of bliss,
Where spirits as they bear the hests of heaven
And warder Zion's towers, lift up the songs
That soaring souls forever sing above.
The thought of meeting my beloved again,
Filled all my soul with gladness; for we part
But for a little season—a brief day,
From earth to heaven, and, like the evening star
Upon the azure verge of summer's sky,
The soul embraceth two eternities.

A sea of voices waked me from my dreams
Of holier spheres, and told me of the earth,
That held in its cold bosom all my loves,
Save one sweet babe, the image of its sire
Upon his lonely widow's heart! O Earth!
Cold is the couch thy sons must sleep upon,
And dark the chambers of their slumber deep.
I looked around me and the vestal moon
Was silvering the waters, o'er which scud,
Swan-like, full many a silent sail bound far,
Perchance, to fathomless eternity!
And dazzling lamps, that seemed in the pale moon
Like crime obtruding his unholy light
Before rose-beaming virtue, glared above
The blushing waters as they laughed in scorn.
And in a sea-dome, studded o'er with lights
That mocked the diamond, many a voice arose
In merriment well feigned, and many a form
Of outward splendour glided round to find
Something to tell how happy all must be
Who woo and win the pleasures of the world.
Like earth's gay hopes, full oft a column rose
Of fire far in the azure vault of night,
And then it burst and vanished! some did watch
The glittering fragments till they fell—then sighed—
And I sighed too—they told me of my joys!
It was no scene for me—the sights I saw
Were once shared with those eyes that wake no more;
The voices that I heard were all unknown;
The arm I held was not my wedded lord's!
'Tis bitter to compare our passing years!
The Dead! where are they now? The Living! what
Are they to those whose hearts are in the tomb?
[OMITTED]
Slow I returned to my lone room, and kissed
My sleeping child, and looked to heaven—and wept.