The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thou art not dead, my vanish'd one!
But living in the light
Of some pure world, beyond the sun,
Where death creates no night,
And sumless babes are smiling now
As bright and beautiful as thou.

When first I saw thy baby-form
With eyes of tearful love,
I little thought a hidden storm
Was looming from above,
So soon to blast my May-born flower
Beneath the blight of deathful power.

The Lord who gives, hath ta'en away,
And blest be His high name!
Oh, that with calm I this could say
And feel God's hallow'd claim:—
Cease, rebel heart! be calm and still,
And bow beneath a Father's will.

Pale relic! now enrobed for death,
Nurseling of hopes and fears,
How did I watch each ebbing breath
And kiss thine infant tears,
When throbs of suff'ring o'er thee came
Thy wordless tongue could never name.

Departed babe! how many a dream
Brighten'd thy father's heart,
When like a vision thou didst seem
In life to take such part,
That o'er his hours there breathed a spell
More exquisite than tones can tell.

With thy soft features round me glowing
Amid the world I went,
And with a heart to heaven o'erflowing
Bless'd thee, bright innocent!
And felt, howe'er my path should roam,
My little star-beam reign'd at home.

Already Hope's prophetic eye
Beheld some future spot,
And underneath life's vernal sky,
Pictured thy maiden lot,
Where truth and grace would be thy guide,
And all thy wants by heaven supplied.

I dream'd, if God thy life should spare,
How blessèd it would be
To hear thy budding lips declare
Young words of Deity;
To watch thy spirit, day by day,
Rise into speech, and learn to pray.

I fancied how my hand would lead
Thy tiny feet along,
By placid shore, or sunny mead
Where brooklets sing their song,
While gay-wing'd breezes round thee flew
And clad thy cheeks with vermeil hue.

And oh! I dared, through Him, to hope,
To Whose baptismal arms
I gave thee,—that thy mind would ope
Each year, with sacred charms;
As more and more The Spirit taught
Thy gentle soul what Jesu wrought.

But thou art pale, a perish'd flower,
A blossom on Life's tree,
Nipp'd in the bud, before the power
Of sin corrupted thee:—
Wash'd in the blood of Jesu white,
Babe, art not thou in glory bright?

Cold, cold, my child! I view thee now
Like Sleep in marble lying,
With paleness on thy placid brow
Which sets my heart a-sighing;
And round thy lips there linger still
Dead smiles that shall remembrance fill.

My first-born! God has call'd thee back,
His gift He doth resume,
But o'er thy father's blighted track
Darkens thine early tomb,—
A haunting shade of more than grief
To which man's world brings no relief.

From room to room I wander on
Where thou hast been of yore,
And all mine eyes can gaze upon
Recalls a child no more;
As though each object would declare
Thy darling glances rested there.

Beloved and beauteous wreck of all
That warm'd this aching breast
With hopes, that when the funeral pall
Should o'er thy parent rest,
There still might be a loving one
To think of him, whose course was run,—

Farewell! farewell! departed child,
Sweet darling of the soul,
Gone to the grave, ere sin defiled
Thy conscience with control;
I mourn, my babe! but not for thee
Becalm'd in Christ's eternity.

Before me lies a perill'd way
Of trial, change, and tears;
If short or long, life's future day,
Rests with the God of years,
Who measures our appointed span,
And deals the thread of time to man.

Yet I shall smile, and act, and speak,
As though thou ne'er hadst been;
And they who scan the brow and cheek
And judge by outward mien,
Can little dream how much we hide
Under the heart's unwitness'd tide!

The purest thoughts lone spirits bear
Are marr'd by being spoken,
And more than deepest words declare
Lives in some heart half-broken;
A transient grief light tongues may tell,
But cloister'd Anguish keeps her cell.

A thousand things must wake the sigh
That shall remember thee,
And raise before the mental eye
Those tombs of memory,
Which o'er the churchyard of the heart
Cast inward shades, which ne'er depart.

The beam, the bud, the blooming grace
Of some infantile flower
Which smiles into a poet's face
In Nature's conscious hour,
Oh! each and all will oft restore,
A mental gleam of her no more.

But melody, beyond all charms,
The buried past regains;
And oft the spoiling tomb disarms
By resurrection-strains,
In whose rapt tones the dead revive,
And untomb'd years appear alive.

Thus will thy sylph-like features float
Before mine inward gaze,
Call'd into life by some sweet note
The harp of feeling plays;
Across my soul thy shape will beam,
And smile like some incarnate dream.

Farewell, my child! but not farewell
For ever;—we shall meet
When sounds creation's dooming knell
Before the judgment-seat;
And I shall know thy little face
Amid the world's assembled race.

Thrice happy babe! thou beauteous Soul
To some bright world ascended,
How glorious that celestial goal
Where thy brief course is ended!—
And most divine that hour will be
That bids me mount, and follow thee.

June 8th, 1848.