University of Virginia Library

He died. The old man, with his snowy hair,
His trembling hands, his weak and weary feet,
And tottering frame, is ready for the grave.
And who is he, who lies outstretched before us?
He has been—
All that we now are who surround his grave;
A fair young mother's joy, a father's care,
Their hope and pride, a happy cherished child.
He, too, has climbed the steep and arduous path
Of literary fame with ardent zeal,
And eye fixed on the ever-verdant wreath
That glory proffers to young Genius' brow.
His hopes were high, were realized, or crushed—
It matters nothing now. And he has been
The warm and faithful lover. He has known
The purest, sweetest passion of the heart—
The bliss of virtuous love, with full returns.
She was as faultless as a mortal maid
Could be;—as beautiful as aught of earth
Has ever been;—as fond as woman's love—
Her young, confiding, earth-untainted love—
Has ever proved itself. And he had sense
To see her worth; to lock her whole fond heart
Safely within his own; to keep untouched
The treasure of her confidence in him;
And they were wholly happy. That is past—
Long years ago he laid her in the grave,
And all his gladness with her. He has been
A kind and tender father. He has seen
His sons and daughters at his loved one's breast,
In their first infancy; while her bright eye
Turned from her babe to him, from him to heaven.
He saw them flourish, beautiful and strong,
Like olive plants, around his ample board,
And poured his thanks to God. Where are they now?
Scattered to every clime—save that grave man,
Whose hair is dashed with silver, and who looks
With swimming eye down into the deep grave.
This is the youngest of the little band
That used to gambol round him; yet he stands
With children and grandchildren dressed in weeds
For this their patriarch father. He has been
A father to his people,—honoured, loved,
Consulted, and believed. A nation's heart
Has bowed before his virtues. Yet he died!—

She died!—the young, the loved, the beautiful,
The wife, the mother died. Fierce agonies
Were preying on her vitals. Cruel pangs
Racked every nerve; each pulse beat fitfully;
Her hands were cold, her eyes were wild and dim,
Yet tears were streaming o'er her death-white cheek,
Upon the little face that fondly still
Was pressed against her bosom. One pale arm,
With strong and stiffening grasp was twined around
Her sobbing husband's neck, while broken words,
Uttered at intervals amidst her pangs,
Commend her infant to its father's care;
And every word and agonizing look
Proved how love triumphs in a woman's heart
O'er agony and death; though every throb
Was but a death-pang, and its strings were racked
With life's last tension, and the blood grew cold,
And curdled painfully within its cells,
Still—still it overflowed with tender care
And love toward its treasures. Oh, how high
That heart has danced to bliss; what thrilling hopes
Have played amongst its young elastic strings,
Making joy's melody! Ah, she has been
The happy, careless girl, the worshipped bride,
The fond expectant mother, with her wealth
Of treasured hopes and pictures of high joys
Along a sunny future. And—she died!
Her widowed husband's heart will heal ere long,
And find another treasure; and the child,
For which her dying heart so agonized,
Will never know its loss. Though haply, when
Earth's cold reality comes with its blight
O'er young life's joyous fancies, it may say,
“Had my own mother lived, I should have had
One friend at least, and these things had not been.”
He died! The miserable vagabond
Has found a home at last. No weepers stand
Around his open grave, and none inquire
What variegated scenes of good and ill
His path has led him through; what varied climes
His weary pilgrim feet have traversed o'er;
How madly he has loved; how bitterly
Cold Disappointment, with her iron hand,
Has wrung his heartstrings; how Bereavement stood
For ever in his path, till manhood's pride
Ceased to contend with fate, and he became
A hopeless, reckless, houseless fugitive,
For Scorn's hard eye to smile at. Yet even then,
While braving the proud world, and rushing on
To ruin and perdition, one kind word,
One look of humid sympathy, could reach
The buried spring of feeling in his breast,
Which, gushing forth, proclaimed him still a Man!
None care for these things. 'Tis enough—he died!

He died! The feeble infant of an hour
Has passed the pangs of death. A few fond hopes
Are buried with it, and a mother's heart
Alone re-echoes to the words—he died!

He died!—She died!—has been pronounced of all
The by-past human race; and soon these words
Will be our sad memorial. We must die
Must! There is no reprieve. 'Tis God's decree.
All that has life must die, and be dissolved
Into its native elements. The form
That seems so passing fair, is so beloved,
And clings so fondly, by a thousand ties,
Around its loved ones, soon will pass away.
Is there a heart that will not pause and shrink,
Though throbbing e'er so high with hope and joy,
When this appalling doom rings through the ear,
Along its shivering strings? that will not turn
And seek instinctively with shuddering dread
Some refuge—some avenue of escape?
But Nature points to none. Her proudest light
Could never pierce the loathsome shade of death;
Her hand still writes on all things—Man must die!

Hail glorious light
Of Revelation! Brightly beaming forth
From the Eternal Mind.—Pure Nature, rise!
Throw off thy shuddering despondency;
Look through this heavenly beam to future life—
To realms of blessed immortality,
Where pain, and age, and agony, and tears,
And death, and parting, never can intrude
On that sweet rest, which God through Jesus gives.
Read and believe;—We die—to live again!