Why should mysterious Heaven bestow
A warm and feeling heart--
Yet doom it naught but pain to know,
And rankle in its smart?
That it might agonize and bleed
At every suffering pore,
The soft affections why decreed
To centre in its core?
The tender ties my heart has proved
That heart has held most dear,
And those most dearly, fondly loved,
Have cost the bitterest tear!
A tender parent's weeping nurse
My early youth I pass'd;
And Heaven did but those tears disperse
To bid them flow more fast:
For rich in worth, a youth appear'd--
I gave my virgin heart;
But Hymen scarce our vows endeared
Ere we were doomed to part:
He, through war's ravaged fields to roam
Eight sad revolving years--
I, droop'd, a widow'd wife at home,
In unavailing tears:
But ah! the pang was yet to feel,
(The worst the heart can know,)
The pang no earthly power can heal,
The climax of all woe!
To me a cherub fair was given,
I placed it next my heart;
It seemed the choicest gift of Heaven--
My bosom's dearest part:
While yet I mark'd each opening charm
That graced its baby brow,
Disease approach'd, in direful form,
To lay each promise low.
And oh! how worse than death to see
The ruins of a mind,
Which, in its dawning, seem'd to be
For better hopes design'd;
To watch with anxious hopes and fears
The daily deep'ning gloom,
Till eighteen sad and suffering years
Had laid her in the tomb.
Though keen the parting pang I felt,
And did my child deplore;
Yet soon in gratitude I knelt--
_Her_ sufferings were no more.
My mind's composure once regain'd,
A competence still ours;
My loved companion, too, remain'd
To cheer my lonely hours:
Fondly I hoped life's evening shade
Might yet in peace descend,
And grief no more my heart invade
Till closing life should end.
But now alas! the transient calm
Flits fast and far away--
The hope that o'er my fancy swam,
And soothed my wasting day;
For dire disease again appears
To break the mild serene;
Again commands my streaming tears,
And clouds our closing scene!
Why, then, my God! thus closely twine
Around this bursting heart,
Those fond affections which are mine,
Such misery to impart!
Dare I, presumptuous, seek to know
What mocks our mortal sight;
Enough for me, thou will'st it so--
It, therefore, must be right.
The piece which follows, our readers will agree with us, is not only
very agreeable verse, but what is still better, is replete with pure
moral sentiment.