The Burdens of Belief and Other Poems By The Duke of Argyll [i.e. G. D. Campbell] |
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LINES TO E. C. G. ON HIS MOTHER'S DEATH
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 | The Burdens of Belief and Other Poems |  |
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LINES TO E. C. G. ON HIS MOTHER'S DEATH
March 30, 1892
I
You've lost your Mother: happy friend,Since you so long have loved her well,
And only now you hear the bell
That tolls a long awaited end.
But I who never knew that love—
The love to her that bore me due—
Can only keep my fancy true
By flights, as of a homing dove,
To memories that are almost lost
In the dim light of infant years,—
To one faint image that appears
As pale and silent as a ghost.
One flower she loved, some souls that drew
The boundless homage of her youth;
Some wingèd seeds from fields of Truth
That lighted on her mind and grew—
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As precious things are wafted o'er
The seas that fetch from shore to shore,
And bring them to our feet at last.
II
A few dim records of those years,When she was full of life and joy,
Alone have crossed me since a boy,
And left me with imagined tears.
Yet often in the crowd of life,
And 'midst some voices of applause,
And in some pecking of the daws,
And in the battle and the strife,
I've wondered if from out that brow
Her eyes were set on me and mine,
As hers were set on thee and thine,
For whom these bells are tolling now;
That brow of which the painter's art
Has made the gentle lines to rise
Above the arch of tender eyes
That look me through from heart to heart.
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III
Yet vainly thus we try to holdThe place well filled by voice and sight,
The touch, the memories, and the light
Of dear communion with the Old.
And so be comforted, my friend,
For thou hast had from dawn of day
A Mother's love to gild thy way
A life-long sonship to the end.
And thou canst hear her voice for aye;
And thou canst see her stately mien;
All lives for thee that e'er has been,
Till thine own years have passed away.
Most blest of all—the part was thine
To speak the words, ‘Remember me,—
To give to her,—'twas granted thee,—
The Sacred Bread, the Sacred Wine;
And, in communion with her Lord,
To see her breathe her latest breath,
To see her close her eyes in death,
And open on the Living Word.
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Is spoken by that passing bell—
To thee, dear friend, it speaketh well,
And only of accomplished rest.
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