My Mind and its Thoughts, in Sketches, Fragments, and Essays

Is then that mind, whose all-perceptive eye,
Seem'd an imparted light of Deity.
That mind which from the sordid earth could soar
To worlds where angels tremble and adore;
Is that extinguished?—As the sun's low ray,
By the cold twilight cloud is borne away—
Or like that sun, in heaven's congenial clime,
Again to wake, with energy sublime!
Hid, but not lost, the undying part shall rise,
More pure, more just, more hallowed, and more wise.
And as on earth unequalled, and alone,
With God's own light the immortal genius shone.
Restored to heaven, with saints and angel's there,
He breathes the blessing, lifts the guardian prayer.

That eye, whose glance, by guileless nature taught,
Spoke the full feeling, beamed the unbounded thought,
That smile assuring, whose protective charm,
Fell on the timid heart, like pity's balm,
With temper kind as heaven, whose cheering glow,
Shed its warm beams on every shade of woe:
That wit spontaneous, whose attractive ease,
Careless of pleasing—never failed to please,

In Page 135 of this work, will be seen an Epistle to Theophilus Parsons.—But too soon after that was written, were the distressed feelings of the Author called to substitute an Obituary of this Great and Good Man—whom she there seemed to admonish.

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That moral wisdom winning, yet severe,
Which speechless wonder bent entranced to hear.
These shall the melancholy thought restore,
And weep to think, they live to charm no more.

Admired! beloved! to earth's affections lost,
But throned in heaven, beyond the seraph host,
Angel! or saint! ah deign our griefs to see,
Nor let the wanderer memory stray from thee.

University of Virginia Library

RECOLLECTIONS,

TO THE MEMORY OF THEOPHILUS PARSONS, LATE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE S. J. C. OF MASSACHUSETTS.