Mother's Dream and Other Poems

THROUGH THE CLOUDS

Through the clouds that veil the sky,Come, O sun, and sweetly smile!Show thy glory to mine eye,So my heart may beam the while.Come, and chase this day of night,For the world is sadly dim.To thy blessed face of lightLet my spirit sing her hymn.Now, in silence and alone,I, to pass the heavy hour,Sit and fancy nature’s moanAfter thy reviving power.Blasts of wildered, wandering air,Asking where thy face can be,Chill and cheerless, every where,Sighing, wailing, seek for thee.Mourning o’er the earth is spread;Bud and flower look pale with grief.Sick, the plant has hung its head;Dulness weighs on every leaf.Not a bird is heard to sing.Reft of thine inspiring ray.As a lyre of every string,Each from sight is hid away.Sable clouds, that veil the blueOf the skies, their shadows throwHere, until their sombre hueGives a cast to all below.Come, O sun, and through the gloomLet thy beaming vesture fall!Bringing music, joy and bloom,Spread thy mantle o’er us all.What were there on earth to love —What were beauteous, bright, or dear,Wert thou not so true above,And thy holy influence here?

MY ROSE TREE

Rose tree, O! my beauteous rose tree,Often have I longed to knowHow thy tender leaves were moulded —How thy buds are burst, and blow.I have watered, sunned, and trained thee,And have watched thee many an hour,Yet I never could discoverHow a bud becomes a flower.So, last night I thought about theeOn my pillow, till, at last,I was gone in quiet slumber;And a dream before me passed.In it, I beheld my rose treeStripped of flower, and bud and leaf;While thy naked stalk and branchesFilled me with surprise and grief.Then, methought, I wept to see theeSpoiled of all that made thee dear,Till a band of smiling angelsMildly shining, hovered near.Gently as they gathered round thee,All in silence, one of themLaid his soft, fair fingers on thee,Pulling leaves from out the stem.One by one thy twigs he furnishedWith a dress of foliage green;While another angel followed,Bringing buds the leaves between.Then came one the buds to open;He their silken rolls unsheathed,While the one who tints the roses,Through their loosened foldings breathed.Then the angel of the odorsFilled each golden-bottomed cell,Till, between the parting petals,Free on air the fragrance fell.Lifting then their shining pinions,Quick the angels passed from sight;Leaving, where aloft they vanished,But a stream of fading light.There I heard sweet strains of music,And their voices far above,Dying in the azure distance,Naming thee a gift of love.And, my rose tree stood before me,Finished thus by angel hands;Perfect in its bloom and fragrance,Beautiful, as now it stands.Hence, whenever I behold thee,I shall think of angels too;And the countless works of goodnessThey descend on earth to do.All unseen and silent, round usThey their careful watches keep;Whether we may wake, or slumber,Guardian angels never sleep!

THE INFANT BAPTIST

And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel.

Luke i. 80.Child, amid the honeyed flowersPassing life’s bright morning hours —Playing in the silver rills,Where they bathe Judea’s hills —Looking, with an earnest eye,At the wild bird flitting by —Infant of the joyous heart,Canst thou tell me who thou art?Thou, whose little hand in playHurls the clustered grapes away;While thou lov’st to watch the bee,Or to win a lamb to thee,And to see the fleecy flockResting by the shadowy rock, —Know’st thou, tender, beauteous boy,What ’s thine errand – whence thy joy?’T was thy name that Gabriel spoke,By the altar, while the smokeFrom thy father’s incense rolled,When thy being was foretold!Thou art come, the promised one,As the dayspring to the sun,Soon to usher in new lightThrough the realms of death and night!Heavenly innocence is nowMarked upon thy peaceful brow:God’s own Spirit filleth thee,Sainted babe; for thou art he,Who before the Lamb shall go,Crying, that the world may knowHe hath life to give the dead,In the blood he comes to shed!Though, from nature wild and rude,Come thy raiment, rest, and food,Nightly o’er thy desert sleep,Angels shall their vigils keep;Through the wilderness by day,They will guard and lead the way;Till to Israel thou appear,Showing heaven’s mild kingdom near.High and glorious, then, the partFor thine eye, and hand, and heart!When thy feet, on Jordan’s side,Feel the waters, as they glide,Thou the Son of God shalt see,Come to be baptized of thee —Hear him named, and see the DoveResting on him from above!

HYMN TO SOLITUDE

O solitude, holy and calm!From tumult and crowds breaking free,I fly, sick and sad, for the balmI find given only by thee.Too oft from thy peace I depart,Kind guardian, friend of my soul, —And then bring an earth-wounded heartFor thee to bind up and make whole.My spirit, now worn and oppressed,Her wings in thy bosom hath furled,To sink, as a bird in its nest,Away from a cold, faithless world!Alarmed at the shade and the chill,That o’er me its visions have cast,I here would lie lowly and still,Till sorrow’s dark night hours are past.And then, from the dust may I rise,To mount, as the lark from her sod;And sing, as the morn of my skiesAppears in the smile of my God.O solitude, sacred and sweet;Whilst thus in thy bosom I lie,Earth’s baubles are under my feet —My heart and its treasure, on high.

THE BIBLE IN THE FIELDS

I love to take this holy book,In summer’s balmy hours,To study it beside the brook,Or by the trees and flowers.For here I read about the God,Who made this world so fair,The skies – the stream – the grassy sodAnd bloom, that scents the air.The birds flit round, and sweetly singOf him, who feeds them all, —Who lifts the towering eagle’s wing,And marks the sparrow’s fall.The violet, from its soft green bed,To speak his goodness too,Presents its tender, purple headBaptized with silvery dew.And here the busy bee I view,As she comes swiftly by,And seems to ask, if she should doMore work, or good than I.Her waxen house betimes to buildI see her wisely bent;And then, with bread and honey filledTo have it, still intent.The bees I find their sweets suppliedIn wild Judea’s land,To feed the Baptist, when he cried,“Heaven’s kingdom is at hand.”And when our Saviour, from the grave,Had asked his friends for meat,He ate the honey-comb they gave;And showed his hands and feet.This volume of his will revealedI here can read within,“Behold the lilies of the field —They neither toil nor spin!”And yet the king “was not arrayedIn glory, like to them;”Their Maker’s power is so displayedIn flower and leaf and stem.And he sat on the mountain’s side,Who spake these blessed words,Before him flowery fields spread wide —Around were trees and birds.The fleecy flocks, that sport so freeOn hill and valley deep,I love to watch: and here I see’T is written, “Feed my sheep.”For thus I seem to keep in view,And feel how near I amTo that dear friend of children, whoHas named himself the Lamb.

THE HOARY HEAD

“The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.”

Aged man, with locks so hoary,High estate dost thou possess!They appear thy crown of glory,In the way of righteousness.Jewels, not of man’s preparing,Form the shining diadem,Thou art from thy Sovereign wearing:God’s own finger silvered them.Thine are honors, proved and heightenedBy the gift of lengthened years;In affliction’s furnace brightened,Tried by cares, and washed with tears.Like thy Master, meek and lowly,Thou a thorny earth hast trod;With thy breast a high and holyTemple of the living God.Aged saint, thy form is bending,Sere and withered, to the tomb;But thy spirit, upward tending,Budded for immortal bloom.

MY FATHER

“In the evening time there shall be light.”

Sacred the hour when thou, my sainted father,Wast of thy worn-out, sinking clay undressed,Softly, by his pale hand, who comes to gatherTime’s weary pilgrims home to joy and rest.Noiseless, and clear, and holiest of the seven,That day when thy last earthly sun went down:Thy Sabbath, closing here, began in heaven;Whilst thy meek brow changed ashes for a crown.Hush was the evening; not a zephyr swellingHeaved the tree-blossom, or the woodbine leaves;Silent the bird, that sang about our dwelling,Slept where she nestled, close beneath its eaves.1Cloudless the moon and stars above were shining,When time’s last ray to thy mild eye was shed;While death’s cold touch, life’s silver cord untwining,Brought his chill night-dew on thy reverend head.Ninety full years of pilgrimage completing,Here didst thou linger till one Sabbath more:’T was holy time; thy pure heart stilled its beating;Pain, work, and warfare were forever o’er!Meet hour for one, obedient, meek, and lowly,Wont, by command of Heaven, the day to keep,Called, at its evening, to the High and Holy,Peaceful in Jesus thus to fall asleep!Sweetly thy form, that seemed a blissful dreamer,Told, by its features, how the spirit smiled,Through the dark, shadowy vale, by thy RedeemerLed to his mansion, like a little child.Nature’s full hand, that, on thy natal morning,Clothed earth to greet thee in the flowers of May,Brought them renewed; thy burial-spot adorning,When fourscore years and ten had rolled away.Now, while the robin, past the window flying,Leads off her young, forsaking here her nest,Constant the wild bird, where thy dust is lying,Sings her sweet hymn, a requiem to its rest.There has it joined the ashes of my mother,Faithful, rewedded to its only bride;And there thy latest-born, my younger brother,Thy fond heart’s care, sleeps closely by her side.Yet, angel father, over Jordan’s waterIs it so far, that now thou canst not seeBack to the shore, where lonely stands thy daughter,Sprinkling its rocks and thorns with tears for thee?Art thou so distant, visions of thy gloryMay not be granted to her mortal sight;When she so long watched o’er thy head so hoary,Smoothing its pillow, till that mournful night?Since here so oft, in pain, the path of dutyThy patient feet, with steady steps, have trod,Safe now they walk the golden streets in beauty;And, O! thy blessed eyes, in peace, see God!

A SAGE HATH DEPARTED

The Lord, from his cloudy pavilion, hath spokenThe soul to himself, and its dust to the clod;The cord He hath loosed, and the golden bowl broken,Who formed them so precious. Be still! it is God.A sage hath departed! the cities sit weeping;From land unto land does the gloom spread away.The seas give their wail to the winds o’er them sweeping —The spirit, that spanned them, hath passed from the clay!His form, pale and cold, the dark mansion encloses;Around it, Philanthropy, Science and ArtTheir tears for their friend, as in death he reposes,Shower warm o’er the hand, and the head, and the heart.But there, while affection her tribute is giving,The beauty, the grandeur, the power of his mindThe grave cannot hide! in his deeds he is living;He shines in the light he diffused for mankind!That mind, as a guide that trod paths on the oceanIts marks o’er the billowy desert to place,While man has a heart, and the deep is in motion,The wide world shall honor, the mariner trace.The stars in their courses to grasp and to measure,His eye loved the blue arch of ether to climb;His soul rose beyond them to lay up a treasureMore bright than the stars, more enduring than time.And here, while the sorrowing Salem2 is shroudedIn weeds, for the son of her pride and her love,’T is his to behold, with a vision unclouded,The glories unveiled of the Salem above.With Bowditch inscribed, for the whole earth’s revering,In letters of light to each point beaming round,A monument formed of his works, now is rearingIts head, where with clusters of planets ’t is crowned.

THE BURIAL OF SCHILLER

The still and solemn, shadowy hour,When Saturday in Sabbath dies,O’er Weimar hangs; with clouds that lowerAnd veil in black the moon and skies.Lo! from yon mansion lights appear,Pale glimmering through the midnight gloom.A coffined form is on the bier,And thence borne forward to the tomb.The funeral train, how sad and slowThey follow that cold sleeping clay;While sighs and sobs of bitter woSound deep along the silent way.And now, the open grave beside,That dismal bier the bearers rest;And heavier waves of sorrow’s tideRoll mighty o’er each mourner’s breast.From him who slumbers in the shroud,As tremblingly they lift the pall,The moon rends off her veil of cloud,And o’er him lets her lustre fall.She beams her silvery, soft adieu.And is again in darkness hid;As if affrighted, thus to viewThe name on that dread coffin lid.For ’t is her lover, now no more —Her friend, whom they to dust consign!And ne’er again is she to pourHer light, – for eyes like his to shine.’T is done, – the fearful, final rite,Too sacred for the glare of day,Has passed beneath the shadowy night —Earth, earth has closed o’er Schiller’s clay!But, hark! the heavens in thunder groan;They weep in torrents o’er his bed;And searching, fiery bolts are thrown,As if to find and wake the dead.These funeral honors, so sublime,Befit him well to whom they ’re paid;And, at the birth of holy time,’T is meet his dust at rest be laid.His spirit, bright with heavenly fire,Has burned its way through mortal strife;And gained its high, intense desireTo solve the mystery of life.It is the budding month of May:This passing storm will call the bloomA tribute nature soon will pay,To dress her deathless Poet’s tomb.

FUNERAL HYMN FOR PRESIDENT HARRISON

A wo-stricken people, in sorrow we gather!The dawn of our glory, our hopes full in bloomAre changed, with the face of our Chieftain, our Father,To sable and cypress to hang round his tomb.While pale in the shroud lies the Patriot sleeping,A light, that for earth is no longer to burn,Removed from its place, a sad nation is weeping;And dark, where it shone, falls the shade of an urn.When loud, through the land, hill and valley and mountainWere sounding his name, and reflecting its beams,The death-angel’s wand opened griefs bitter fountain,To quench their warm joys with its far-flowing streams.Alas! that the spoiler so early must severA tie, which the hearts of a country had boundTo him, who is gone – who is gone, and forever,To join the bright hosts who their Saviour surround!Our Father in heaven, yet grant us another,Like him, who has left us, as orphans, below!O did not the Sage on his dear younger Brother,When called to thy presence, his mantle bestow?To Thee, who, from darkness, thy children hast stricken,We cry with our wound, asking balm from the Tree,Whose leaves heal the nations: Hear, hear us, and quickenOur wandering feet to return unto Thee!

DIRGE FOR FELICIA HEMANS

They hovered around her, an angel band:They listened her notes to hear.The voice was one of their own bright land;But stained was the harp in their sister’s hand,With marks of the falling tear.They saw she had wreathed it with deathless flowers;While many a beauteous leaf,That looked like the growth of their heavenly bowers,Was pale with the shade of her darksome hours,Or wet with the dews of grief.Then gently from under her hand they tookHer harp, and laid it aside:The tremulous chords, at her parting lookAnd the farewell sweep of her fingers, shook,And snapped as her numbers died.The angels had whispered of joys above,And wooed her with them to soar,Till spreading her wings like a peaceful dove,Her spirit arose for a world of loveTo wander on earth no more.Britannia, drop thy heaviest tear!O weep! it will be forgiven,That, fain we had kept in her bondage hereA soul so pure, and a voice so dearHad longer withheld from heaven.

SHE DIED, AS DAWNED HER NATAL DAY

She died, as dawned her natal day!Amid the buds and flowers of MayHer spirit left the beauteous clay,In death’s deep slumber here;And mounting up her starry way,Attained that holier sphere,Where falls no night o’er birth-day light —No sorrow brings a tear.The joy and glory of the skiesWith radiance fill her heavenly eyes,Where thornless flowers around her rise,And founts that ne’er shall fail;While here her form so lowly liesAll silent, cold and pale;Where dews distil, and night-winds chillMoan through the shadowy vale.

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AFTER THE LINES OF A DECEASED FRIEND

Close to the lines that her dear hand had traced,Who took so soon an angel’s form on high —After her name is my memorial placedFor thee, my friend, and it shall tell thee why.I find a sweetness where her spirit breathed:A sacred halo round her name is thrown;So, with the flowers that here her fingers wreathedTo borrow life from them, I twine my own.Fresh in thy heart and mine her memory lives,Fragrant and fair, and thornless in its bloom:Here with the precious odor that it gives,I fain my simple offering would perfume.Then, whatsoe’er the change that comes to me —Though death or duty put me far away,These silent leaves may still unfold to theeThe wish of one who was thy friend to-day.Peace be to thee – long life, and joy, and healthThe blest allotment of thy sojourn here;The portion of a child of God, thy wealth,When time must close, and earth shall disappear!

THE SOVEREIGN OF BABYLON

The monarch has opened his banqueting hallFor his thousand lords, and his ladies all!The sparkling wine to each guest is poured,And mirth swells high at the festal board,Where none hath the heart more careless and light,Than he, whose glory must end to-night.With the cup and the revel the king grows bold —He calls for the vessels of silver and gold;The spoils his idolatrous father brought,’Mid the impious deeds which that proud one wrought,From the temple of God, at Jerusalem,That he and his nobles may drink from them.Each sacred vessel they fill and raiseTo a laughing lip, as it speaks the praiseOf the gods of metal, of wood and stone,But mocks at the name of the Holy One,Whose finger this hour shall come so near: —That lip will quiver and blanch with fear.Monarch! what’s there, on the lighted wall,That can fix thy gaze and thy spirit appall?Why is thy countenance changed, O king?Is it one of thy gods this awe can bring,Which makes thy knees together to smite,Thine eye so wild, and thy cheek so white?“A hand! a hand! it hath written a line!And who will the terrible words define?A chain of gold shall encircle his neck —A vesture of scarlet his form shall deck —And the third, as ruler, shall be that seer,With honor and power throughout Chaldea!”Not all the wise and the learned of thine,Poor impotent one, shall explain that line!But the captive of Judah, him thy queenHas bid thee summon – let him be seen!His eye prophetic receives its sightFrom the Being, who caused the hand to write.The slave is brought to the potentate!To spurn his gifts, but to read his fate;To whom ’t is inscribed on the lofty wall,“Thou art weighed, found wanting, and now must fall!Thy kingdom is numbered – the Persian and MedeShall hence to thy throne and thy power succeed!”They come! – the foemen – nor sword nor flight,Shall win for that monarch the morning light!The haughty head where the crown was set,In dust is pillowed – with gore is wet!Ye, who are trusting in honor and gold,Look on him now, and your strength behold!

THE DEER STRICKEN BY TORCH-LIGHT

The arrow! the arrow is fast in his side!And still through the forest they followThe poor stricken deer, that has nowhere to hide,And dared not to pause where the cool waters glide,When, leaping the brook, he would almost have died,One draught from its ripple to swallow.That deep-planted arrow! O how can he bearThe anguish of feeling it quiver,When shook by the branches, the wave, or the air,As forward he bounds, but without heeding where,From thicket to crag, with the force of despair,To plunge in the cold, sweeping river?They hunted him hard, till the sun in the westHad sunk, while their aim he evaded.At evening, he sought a calm refuge of rest,And dropped from pursuit, by his terrors oppressed,Beneath the close branches, in verdure full-dressed,By night and the covert o’ershaded.But ah, the poor deer! they had doomed him to die!For near the green turf where he laid him,They lighted the torch, and they brandished it high;It glared through the boughs on his tender black eye,That fatally shone for the death-shaft to fly;His beauty, his beaming betrayed him:He cannot by flying now loosen the dart,The end of his tortures to quicken,By letting the life in one blood-gush depart.He seeks a retreat, like the warm, wounded heart,When, lone, slow, and silent, the victim of art,It dies, as a deer that is stricken.

THE DEATH OF SAPPHIRA. 3

Sapphira, Sapphira, awake!Alas! she is gone in the sleepThat but the archangel can break;For life hath no slumber so deep.’T is death! his pale ashes are castOn those withered lips, where but nowAn insult to Heaven was passed;His dumbness hath followed the vow.A bolt from above, swift and sure,Hath blasted the pride of the clay;The spirit, in boldness secure,In guilt hath been stricken away.O child of delusion! to standThe chosen of Jesus among,To cover the fraud of thy hand,By falsehood to him on thy tongue!How vain, the deceit of the heartTo shroud in a mantle so frail!Its perfidy, thus by its art.To think from Omniscience to veil!Lost woman! but three hours before,The form of thy partner in sinWas borne, wan and cold, from the door,Where thou didst so rashly come in.And they, who had carried him out,The clods o’er his bosom to lay,Were waiting, the threshold about,To bear thee to darkness away.Sapphira, could Mercy restore,Or Pity thy spirit recall,To light up its dwelling once more,It should not thus hopelessly fall.But Mercy besought thee in vain,From death’s awful brink to recede;To shun the despair and the painWhere she is forbidden to plead.And Pity’s warm tear-drops must rollThe more, that she cannot relumeThe clay whence the self-wounded soulHath rushed to a suicide’s doom.How potent, how maddening the love,O gold, of a mortal must be,To challenge an arm from above —To stake earth and heaven for thee!For Justice to Judgment will call;And who shall their coming abide,When wrath the most fearful of all,“The wrath of the Lamb,” is defied?

WILLIAM AT SEA

Whilst thou art away, where the proud waves are swellingBeneath thy light bark, ever mindful of thee,The days of thine absence, at home we are telling,And counting the hours of our William at sea.And thou, whether cradled to sleep by the billow,Or watching the sport of the spray and the foam,If pensive on deck, or in dreams on thy pillow,We know hast thy soul rapt with visions of home.We know, when the sun mounts the east in his glory,Or smiles a “good night,” as the west he descends,Thy heart, pointing back, to itself tells the storyOf mansion paternal, and kindred and friends.And when at the morning and evening devotion,While bending with offerings of praise and of prayer,To God we commend thee afar on the ocean,We feel thou art kneeling for us to him there.While months on the waters, long months are before thee,The two fluid worlds thou art tossing between —The cold deep below, and the skies bending o’er thee,Alone by their changes will vary the scene.Or, if a bright isle, on the flood-waste upstarting,Rude ocean’s green oasis, rest thy glad eye,’T will fade as a cloud – as a phantom departing,’T will sink in the circle that bounds sea and sky.Should some white-winged ship, with her light pennon streaming,Thy heart on that wide watery desert to cheer,Arise, like a star through night’s solitude beaming,With meteor swiftness she ’ll soon disappear.And when the coy sea-bird, a wild ether-sailor,Comes near on her passage, for one language more,O! how wilt thou long, ere she flies thee, to hail her,To ask whither bound, and the tidings from shore!Yet, while so unstable, so pathless and lonely,Thy way o’er that desolate deep may be found,’T is marked with the impress of Deity only;His merciful arms will thy frailty surround.’T is grand, ’t is ennobling, while feeling and knowingHis presence is power, and his banner is love,To look from that flood, to the firmament showingBright shadowings-forth of his glory above.And, William, though tempest and terrors assail thee —Though clouds rolled on clouds hide the stars and the sun,Thy soul’s chosen Friend never, never will fail thee!Winds and waves but obey that omnipotent One.While o’er and around thee thick darkness may gather;When wide yawns the deep, and the surges swell high,Thy spirit may hear the kind voice of her Father,Still whispering, “Be of good cheer; it is I.”And safe may he bear thee through perils and changesBesetting his course, who so widely would roam,Then speed thy return from the land of the Ganges,From pagod and painim! Dear William, come home.Come home, where the eyes beam through tears to behold thee;Where arms open wide to receive thee will be;And promise, while yet to the heart they infold theeTo be, never after, our William at sea!