The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey :: :: University of Virginia Library

Hark! hark! they're come!—those merry bells,
That peal their joyous welcome swells;
And many hearts are swelling high,
With more than joy—with ecstasy!

And many an eye is straining now
T'ward that good ship, that sails so slow;
And many a look toward the land
They cast, upon that deck who stand.

Flow, flow, ye tides!—ye languid gales,
Rise, rise, and fill their flagging sails!—
Ye tedious moments, fly, begone,
And speed the blissful meeting on.

Impatient watchers! happy ye,
Whose hope shall soon be certainty;
Happy, thrice happy! soon to strain
Fond hearts to kindred hearts again!

244

Brothers and sisters—children—mother—
All, all restored to one another!
All, all returned!—And are there none
To me restored, returned?—Not one.

Far other meeting mine must be
With friends long lost—far other sea
Than thou, oh restless ocean! flows
Betwixt us—One that never knows

Ebb-time or flood;—a stagnant sea;—
Time's gulf;—its shore Eternity!—
No voyager from that shadowy bourne
With chart or sounding may return.

There, there they stand—the loved!—the lost!
They beckon from that awful coast!—
They cannot thence return to me,
But I shall go to them.—I see

E'en now, methinks, those forms so dear,
Bend smiling to invite me there.—
Oh! best beloved! a little while,
And I obey that beckoning smile!

'Tis all my comfort now, to know
In God's good time it shall be so;
And yet, in that sweet hope's despite,
Sad thoughts oppress my heart to-night.

And doth the sight of others' gladness
Oppress this selfish heart with sadness?
Now Heaven forbid!—but tears will rise—
Unbidden tears—into mine eyes.

245

When busy thoughts contrast with theirs
My fate, my feelings—Four brief years
Have winged their flight, since, where they stand,
I stood and watched that parting band

Then parting hence—and one, methought—
Oh, human foresight! set at nought
By God's unfathomed will!—was borne
From England, never to return!—

With saddened heart I turned to seek
Mine own beloved home—to speak
With her who shared it, of the fears
She also shared in . . . . It appears

But yesterday that thus we spoke;
And I can see the very look
With which she said, “I do believe
Mine eyes have ta'en their last long leave

Of her who is gone hence to-day!”
Five months succeeding slipped away;
And, on the sixth, a deep-toned bell
Swung slow, of recent death to tell!

It tolled for her, with whom so late
I reasoned of impending fate;
To me, those solemn words who spoke
So late with that remembered look!

And now, from that same steeple, swells
A joyous peal of merry bells,
Her welcome, whose approaching doom
We blindly thought—a foreign tomb!