University of Virginia Library

I feel an ardent longing for thy love,
A yearning for that Spirit-land above!
A wounded spirit is the one to feel,
By suffering, what it is to value weal!
I long to lay me in my resting-place,
And cradle me again in thy embrace;
And stay my wounded spirit on thy breast—
The only one that ever gave me rest!
Thou art the same dear mother to me still—
The same dear creature, that was wont to fill
My heart with unalloyed delight—to throw
Such sweet enchantment over all my woe!
Though grief has almost driven me to despair,
I yet can feel some comfort in the care
Which soothed my sorrows with an answering smile,
And would not suffer me to want the while.
Methinks if I had been there by thy side,
As others were, that you would not have died!
I sometimes seek thee in the calm of even,
By soaring on the wings of thought to Heaven:
I look up through the rifted clouds to see
If there is anything in Heaven like thee;
I see thee in the noonday-waning moon,
And shall be with thee in that Kingdom soon—
In those far regions of delight where lie
The Golden Hills of Immortality.
And like the mateless dove, incessantly,
I go on tireless wing in search of thee;
But finding nowhere in this world to rest,
I come back home again to my sad nest,
And utter my lament upon this bough,
In pensive languishment, as I do now!
For as the Dove, with her soft wings, will hide
The wound that has been bleeding in her side,
And, with unmingled feelings of despair,
Compress the arrow that is quivering there;
So did my pride, within my heart, conceal
The uncomplaining grief which nought could heal!
It is most strange that music has the power
To call up childhood from its earliest hour:
Those words of soft endearment spoke by thee,
Worth all the praises in the world to me,
Are all respoken by the simplest tone
Resembling but an image of thine own:
And all those lineaments that once were thine,
Are pictured to me as they were, divine—
As when we occupied whole hours of talk
On heavenly things, beside the garden walk;
For there it was, when in my youthful prime,
I used to wallow on sweet beds of thyme,
And lying there some pleasant afternoon,
Would gaze up fondly at the full round moon,
Just coming out of heaven, as if to see
What holier Moon was watching there by me:
For, as that moon her little stars at night,
So thou didst lead me to the realms of light,
Through all the rich plantations of thy love,
More sweet to me than heaven to them above.

And all that time, whenever you were nigh,
I had no idea then that you could die!
I recollect, you used to comb my hair,
And part it on my forehead with such care;
And, bending down above me, on your knee,
Would say so many precious things to me,
And give me oval plums of purple hue,
Sweeter than all the fruitage of Meru;
And often, as our friendly talk went on,
How often would you call me your “dear son!”
And always, when that tender talk began,
I thought if I could only be a man,
I would be happier than the day was long,
And do such mighty things for thee—none wrong—
Until it seemed, by wishing it to be,
I was a man in cold reality.
But, since that time—before my youth was spent—
I have had many reasons to lament
The wish I made—for it was just as vain
As now to wish myself a child again!
And then the songs that you would sing for hours,
Seemed woven from the leaves of earliest flowers,
Whose melody was like the sweet perfume
The violet sheds upon an infant's tomb;
Which flowed as liquid as a wave that curls
Around an island in the Sea of Pearls;
Through which my spirit had the power to see
The link that bound you to the Deity.
The Hours, as if their wings were made of lead,
Have moved on tardily since thou wert dead!
I have forgotten half that might have been,
Just from the tardiness of each long scene!
I have been wounded, like the stricken deer
Flying from his pursuers in the rear,
That has no time to stop upon the way
To cool his parching thirst, but, day by day,
Forever farther from his covert flies,
Through vistas all unknown—until he dies!
So does my wounded spirit, from the hounds
Of sorrow, traverse earth's remotest bounds,
And flying thence, where deer was never driven,
Seek out its covert in the longed-for Heaven!
The very truths which you have taught to me,
Now make me mournful but to think of thee!
For now there is no mother to beguile
My leisure hours, nor comfort me the while!
It is mine orphanage alone can see
How much my spirit stands in need of thee!
And thus, while thou art in thy coffin laid,
This offering of my love must now be paid,
Which flows as freely from my soul to thee,
As when the rivers run into the sea;
In order that thy spirit from above
May know the depths of mine eternal love!
A few short years, perhaps, may roll around,
And I will then be buried in the ground!
But not so with my soul—it is divine—
And shall be happy in that world with thine!