University of Virginia Library

My dearest Mother, could a lay of mine
Rescue thy memory from oblivion's gloom,
How gladly would my efforts try to build
Th' imperishable verse; for thou wert one
Deserving well the love of those that knew thee.
Pious thou wert, sincere, and elevate
Above all vulgar thought: thy heart, the seat
Of every finer sensibility,
Was not for this world's ways. How well do I
Remember, when I yet was but a boy,
And only knew of death by name: ne'er yet
Had felt the nearest interests of my heart
Rent by its cold inexorable hand;
How well do I still recollect the beam
That brightened in thine eye, and o'er thy face
Spread like a glory, when some lovely scene
Of nature called on thee to gaze; or when
In book which thou perusedst thou did meet
With sympathetic sentiment, from strain
Lofty, impassioned, generous, or devout.
How well do I remember when on eve
Of summer, thou didst sit, and watch the sun's
Last radiance, watch the simple landscape seen
From nether windows of thy then abode,
With houses otherwise encompassed, how
Do I remember what serenity,
Bespeaking solemn and unearthly thoughts,
Brooded on all thy person! How thou lookedst
Still I recall to mind, and too recall
How oft such hour by some appropriate strain
From the Seasons' bard, and him of flight more lofty,
The Poet who did tune his sacred harp
To tell of man's first innocence, his fall,
And restoration,—how such hour was filled
By some appropriate strain from these with taste
Selected;—thy enunciation graced
Each apt quotation: for thy countenance,
Each gesture, tone of voice, an earnest gave,
Thou lentest more of feeling to the strain
By thee recited, than thou drew'st from thence.
Thou wert meet Priestess for an hour like this!
Thine was a breast tuned to each holier thought!
Thine was a voice which e'en an angel might
Have made its organ, in discourse with man
Rendering thee his interpretress! so free
From aught of vulgar, sordid, mean, or low,
Were all thy feelings, that not only thou
Didst never to a mood which these inspire
Give utterance, but also in thy breast
Instinct connatural to such impulses
Could not be found!

Thou hadst a fiery spirit,
But yet of fire celestial! and the flame
Thou inly nursedst, like a vestal light
Diffused its radiance round thy daily path,
Shone in thy countenance, purified thy words
From all alloy terrestrial: (never thought
By this world's dross adulterate dimmed their brightness)
Pure was thy love as that which we conceive
Souls disembodied feel for spirits purged
From all material sediment. Thou art gone!
The scene in which thou movedst now is filled
By other objects. No more doth thy keen,
And searching spirit, o'er the haunts preside,
Where to thy friends thy form was once familiar!
Thus do the generations pass away!
And nought is left of those we most did love,
Most cherished, and most reverenced, those who most
Endeared to us our span of life below,
But their remembrance living in our hearts.
So will it ere long fare with him who now
Indites this frail memorial. Ah, were life,
So brittle are its best of gifts, worth having,
Were there not hope that every struggle here
Will yet be recognized! Each tear we shed
Of sorrow, or contrition, yet recalled,
And with a crown rewarded! There's a voice
Which tells us that supreme reality
Is not in things of sense! They who have felt
Their spirits lifted by the power of prayer,
These, these can tell that power doth with it bring
Secret assurance of its genuine worth!
What causes us when we are told of those
Whose robes are whitened in their Saviour's blood,
Of those who have as conquerors come forth
From many tribulations, what doth cause
That secret earnestness the spirit feels
To be of that blest number? Why, if things
Of sense were doomed to be our chiefest good,
Do things of sense ne'er satisfy the soul,
Do things of sense ne'er satisfy the soul,
And vaguest promises of Gospel joy,
Bring greater confirmation to the spirit
Wrestling with passions, and with tempting baits
Of speciousest allurement, than all things
The world can give? Why do we find our life,
Then when we lose it, most? Or whence arise
The stubborn facts, that having sacrificed
The bulkiest treasures of this bustling world,
For things not only here invisible,
But also oft but half imagined, we
Feel a deep calm that tells us we are wise?
It is that there is truth in virtue's hopes!
Let a man have not only all this world
Can give externally, but let him too
Have all internal powers adapted best
To most voluptuous pleasures of existence,
Still will his joys, like motes before the eye
On a warm summer's day, suddenly vanish;
Fall from him like the dim imaginings
Of half-remembered dreams, and like a corse,
Cold and inanimate,—and worse than this,—
E'en like a culprit caught in act of guilt,
Appalled, surprised, convicted, smote with shame,
Leave him a statue of mute wonderment!
Do virtue's promises deceive us thus?—
Do they forsake us when we want them most?
Do they fly from us, like unfaithful friends
From a sick comrade, or from death-bed scene?
When we most want reality, are they
Not then most real found? They may indeed
By turbulent pleasures of this bustling world
Be scared away: but not like parasites,
They best bested us when we need them most!
Like worldly men, the pleasures of this world
Add confluence but to confluence! But the joys
Derived from virtue live in solitude:
Comfort e'en indigence, where lack of friends
Is most regretted, there they most repair,
O'er pain they triumph, and defy e'en death!

My Mother, thou hadst well these truths discerned!
Though blest with sense, and polished manners, thou
E'en in the flower of youth didst wisely turn
From all the proffered flatteries of life,
And seeking that within, which other's seek
Without, thou addedst to the Confessors
By whom the ways of truth are justified!
Thine own example furnishing best proof
That e'en in sickness (for thou sufferedst much
From this the greatest enemy to joy,
Save that which doth assail the sons of guilt)
That e'en in sickness, there may be discovered
A never-failing balm. Though there in thee
Was found that sensibility which oft
Exaggerates life's joys, in thee it brought
Its own redress. For while it haply raised
The smothered sigh for more than common bliss,
That delicacy hence thy soul imbibed,
Forbade all earthly bliss to satisfy
Its most importunate cravings.—

My weak art
Is all inadequate to draw thee forth
From death's oblivious gloom; thee to pourtray
As thou wert seen, and known, and felt to be.
But never, never can my heart forget
The influence of thy presence! I am proud
Now to reflect I was with mother blest,
Who although she was with humility
Clad as a daily garb, never betrayed,
In thought, or word, or action, any impulse
Not fittted for the universe to witness.

Thou wert by nature eminently blessed
With powers of nice discrimination. Thou
Couldst see at once through veil the most opaque
Hypocrisy assumed. Thou wert not soon
Duped by professions. Flattery thou didst hate.
To thee the best of flatteries was to be
Unflattering; thy best homage, sympathy.
Thy sense of nice propriety extended
From things to persons. Thou didst always call
Forth others latent powers: didst evermore
Thyself forget in company with others.
The rites of hospitality thou ne'er
Neglectedst: to thy table, to thy roof,
None came unwelcome, whatsoe'er the hour,—
Thy mood,—thy pressures of anxiety,—
And I have heard it said by Him who best
Knew thy life's tenor, that he never saw thee,
Save with a smile of kindly courteous welcome,
Greet e'en the guest the most inopportune:
And best of introductions to thy notice,
Was it to feel that notice might give joy,—
Do good,—at least some sorrow mitigate!
Not like the worldling who doth ever seek
The flux of company, thou chiefly turnedst
Thy kind attention where it most could find
A heart whose desolation it might gladden.

In thee a perfectly decorous bearing
Was not, like garb of state, put on alone
For festal days; an emanation 'twas
From a still cleaving sense most exquisite,
Most unremitting, of propriety.
And those who saw thee might perhaps at first,
More than by love, be, by respect, impressed:
Provided that, if they discriminate powers
Possessed, they had not soon discovered thou
Beneath this veil of nice propriety
Conceal'dst a heart where tenderest feelings dwelt:
'Twas not because she felt not, 'twas because
Her feelings were too lofty for this world,
It was because that she, to those she loved
Could give perchance more than they could return,
And that a secret intimating instinct
This truth suggested, perhaps not self-confessed
From her abundant lowliness of heart,
'Twas hence the panoply of circumspection
Did so conspicuously guard her life,
That to the superficial she might seem
Reserved, unbending, rigid, and austere!—
But no, let those who as a mother saw thee
When thou hadst babes that asked a mother's care,
Let those who saw thee when the poor did plead,
Let those who saw thee when an o'ercharged heart
Gave to the tongue the utterance it needed,
To pour its secret sorrows to thy ears,—
Let these say how thou feltest! Though thyself
Not only wert from every stain exempt,
But that not e'en the most pestiferous breath
Of most deliberate malevolence
Could ever in thy conduct find a flaw,
Yet thou wert ever ready to discern
Some palliative for frailties of mankind.
In thee the fallen, not a censurer
Found, but a sorrowing, sympathetic friend!
Grief, came she even in the garb of vice,
To thee was sacred; and if charity
May indeed cover multitude of sins,
What may not then be said of it when borne—
(Not as antagonist weight so to eke out
Our own slack worthiness)—by one like thee,
Exempted from all need (as men wear masks)
With one compensatory grace to hide
A thousand failings? No, in thee it was
A fresh, gratuitous, and healthful spring
Like that of living waters: not squeezed out,
A most equivocal distilment, drawn,
(By process as elaborate as those
Of antique chemistry) from neighbouring vices!
Thine was no maudling, whimpering charity!

It was the charity of one whose breast,
Rich in its own creations, owed to these
A consciousness of all man's heart can feel;
In that warm bosom there did dwell enshrined
A human microcosm, which reflected
All the mind's accidents; and though in her
Each impulse not consistent with true worth,
If it had e'er had birth, had been repressed,
This opulence of nature, this rich gift
Of human intuitions, qualified—
(As mariners assisted by a compass
May unknown seas explore)—her to extend
E'en to the obscurest regions of the mind,
To all those passions which command our tears,
To all those impulses which would be voiceless
Had they not correspondent sighs and groans,
A quick discernment, and a sympathy
Which almost did anticipate the prayer
Labouring for utterance in an aching heart
Desirous of her aid, to speak ashamed!