Ay! she made all things beautiful to me,
Drawing, with youth's pure privilege, the sting
Of guilt and wrong from life--'twas as the sun
Rose on a sphere seen but by night before.
Ah! bitter image of a transient thing,
That shineth with Promethean glory, then
Sinks 'neath the shadow of Eternity!
Oh Spirit! day by day I saw her fade,
The life within her grew more spiritual,
Triumphing in the weakness of the flesh,
And in her eyes supernal brightness shone,
As from the glory of approaching heaven.
Dear child! that kisses could not keep awake,
Or woo from the sweet love of Mother-land.
She lay within these arms, and angels came
And whispered her away with them to Heaven,
So softly, that I knew it not, but still
Murmured my heart to her. To sense she lay
Upon my breast, and yet she was in heaven;
This but the earthly mantle she had shed.
There were those silken locks that curtained her,
And her sweet lips that I had kissed but now;
From whence, as from a living spring of love,
Trickled pure heaven streams o'er my life's dull waste.
But Oh! I kissed the soft lids from her eyes,
And knew my desolation, for the soul
That was their soul, as light is day's, no more
Stood in their dewy portals, like a queen
Swaying true-hearted multitudes. Oh heaven!
'Twas wonderful to fold her thus unto me,
With life's ripe bloom upon her cheeks, and grace
Clinging round her like a bridal robe,
Yet feel that she, the verity, the self,
Was floating, worlds-off, on the stream of souls
To God. Oh mind! 'tis ever thus with thee!
Thou graspest at material shadowings,
Whilst that the immaterial substance of all good
Flies from thee like a vapour from the wind;
So that thou hast a clod within thine hand,
Life seems eternal, till the crumbling dust
Runs through thy clenching fingers, and thy gage
Mocks thee up from the mould'ring frame of Earth.
There is no mystery like Death; it comes
Sightless as the first breath of infant life,
And goes to an unsearched Eternity--
The End and the Beginning are alike.