And hast thou sought thy heavenly home,
Our fond, dear boy--
The realms where sorrow dare not come,
Where life is joy?
Pure at thy death as at thy birth,
Thy spirit caught no taint from earth,
Even by its bliss we mete our dearth,
Casa Wappy!
Despair was in our last farewell,
As closed thine eye;
Tears of our anguish may not tell
When thou didst die;
Words may not paint our grief for thee,
Sighs are but bubbles on the sea
Of our unfathom'd agony,
Casa Wappy!
Thou wert a vision of delight
To bless us given;
Beauty embodied to our sight,
A type of heaven.
So dear to us thou wert, thou art
Even less thine own self than a part
Of mine and of thy mother's heart,
Casa Wappy!
Thy bright, brief day knew no decline--
'Twas cloudless joy;
Sunrise and night alone were thine,
Beloved boy!
This morn beheld thee blithe and gay;
That found thee prostrate in decay;
And ere a third shone, clay was clay,
Casa Wappy!
Gem of our hearth, our household pride,
Earth's undefiled,
Could love have saved, thou hadst not died,
Our dear, sweet child!
Humbly we bow to fate's decree;
Yet had we hoped that time should see
Thee mourn for us, not us for thee,
Casa Wappy!
Do what I may, go where I will,
Thou meet'st my sight;
There dost thou glide before me still,
A form of light.
I feel thy breath upon my cheek,
I see thee smile, I hear thee speak,
Till, oh! my heart is like to break,
Casa Wappy!
* * * * *
The nursery shews thy pictured wall,
Thy bat, thy bow,
Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball;
But where art thou?
A corner holds thine empty chair;
Thy playthings, idly scatter'd there,
But speak to us of our despair,
Casa Wappy!
* * * * *
We mourn for thee when blind, blank night
The chamber fills;
We pine for thee when morn's first light
Reddens the hills;
The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea--
All--to the wallflower and wild pea--
Are changed--we saw the world through thee,
Casa Wappy!
* * * * *
Snows muffled earth when thou didst go,
In life's spring-bloom,
Down to the appointed house below--
The silent tomb.
But now the green leaves of the tree,
The cuckoo, and "the busy bee,"
Return, but with them bring not thee,
Casa Wappy!
'Tis so! but can it be--(while flowers
Revive again)--
Man's doom in death--that we and ours
For aye remain?
Oh! can it be that o'er the grave
The grass, renew'd, should yearly wave,
Yet God forget our child to save?
Casa Wappy!
It cannot be; for were it so
Thus man could die,
Life were a mockery--thought were woe,
And truth a lie--
Heaven were a coinage of the brain--
Religion frenzy--virtue vain,
And all our hopes to meet again,
Casa Wappy!
Then be to us, O dear, lost child!
With beam of love,
A star--death's uncongenial wild--
Smiling above!
Soon, soon thy little feet have trod
The skyward path, the seraph's road,
That led thee back from man to God,
Casa Wappy!
Yet, 'tis sweet balm to our despair,
Fond, fairest boy,
That heaven is God's, and thou art there
With him in joy!
There past are death and all its woes,
There beauty's stream for ever flows,
And pleasure's day no sunset knows,
Casa Wappy!
Farewell, then--for a while farewell,
Pride of my heart!
It cannot be that long we dwell
Thus torn apart--
Time's shadows like the shuttle flee;
And dark howe'er life's night may be,
Beyond the grave I 'll meet with thee,
Casa Wappy!
[49] This touching elegiac poem (which is not unsuitable for music) was
written by Mr Moir on the death of his favourite child, Charles
Bell--familiarly called by him "Casa Wappy"--who died in February 1838,
at the age of four and a half years.