The Two Brothers, and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh, slumber softly—on thy mother sleeping
Thou feelest not life's anguish and unrest;
Thy light dreams know not grief, and fear not weeping,
And thy whole world is now thy mother's breast.

For, ah! how sweetly' in early hours one dreameth
When in a mother's love life's dews distil,
Though the dim memory unabiding seemeth
But a far hope that trembles through me still.

Thrice may this glow pass o'er us sweetly shining;
Thrice to the happy spirit is it given,
Awhile in Love's celestial arms reclining,
On earth to picture life's ideal heaven.

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For it is she who first the nursling blesses,
When in bright joys he takes his infant part,
All to his young glance seem to shower caresses,
Love holds him to his mother's beating heart.

And when the clear blue heavens are clouded over,
And now his pathway lies through strange alarms,
When first his soul is trembling as a lover,
A second time Love clasps him in her arms.

Ah, still in storms the floweret's stem is broken,
And breaks the fluttering heart by tempests riven;
Then Love ariseth with her choicest token,
And as Death's angel bears him home to heaven.

Watton, 1845.