Filial Piety.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

I.

WHAT law is sacred to the wretch who breaks

The First? the cradle's code, by Nature given?
God's, in the sire's, authority awakes:

His sire who mocks, mocks too the Sire of Heaven!
Our guard when weak, our guide when error-driven,
The father reigns; revere his hoary age,—

All sacred things are old,-and God's quick levin The scorner of white hairs will blast in rage;

So perish'd they who mock'd, of old, His Seer and Sage.1

II.

Warm as volcanic springs and strong, should start

Of Filial Love the full and flowing tide.
We of our parents are a sever'd part:

Fragments of worlds, struck off when orbs collide,
'Tis said, still near the parent orb abide,
Revolving, in love's orbit, round it ever:

Thus should the heart revolve, in love and pride,
Around its parent heart, with fond endeavour

To light its darken'd hours, and watch it, wearied

never.

III.

And what so worthy of our love? A glory

To filial eyes shines forth a parent's light;
His ill,—not theirs the study nor the story;

For Canaan's curse can still the irreverent smite.2
The pleasant play of hearts, when life is bright,
How can it be forgot? When parents move,
Our angels, through home's Eden of delight,—
Our early home, that after dream of love,

Rosy with earthly bloom, but radiant from above!

IV.

Oh, out of heaven, there is no love like theirs!
And for such love, shall we not yield our own?
Self other hearts with sympathy still shares;
But selfish thought nor throb in theirs is known.
That we may minister to them, alone,

Do others love: all gifts of heart and mind,

Power, beauty, fame-stays love when these are gone? Lost what we are and have-waits love behind? With the first frost it shrinks, and scatters with the wind!

V.

A parent's love! What doth it know of change?
It broods, with seraphs, o'er our cradled sleep;
Follows, with fearless faith, o'er life's rough range,
Nor spares a pause to shudder and to weep.
The mindless, formless, loveless, it doth keep
Clasp'd to its holy heart; its living ray

Lights the loathed lazar couch and dungeon deep;
Guilt from the Death-tree frights it not away;

It clings till all is o'er,—and lingers still to pray.

VI.

For time, nor tears, nor even crime and shame, Can quench that spark of heaven's paternal glow; No touch nor taint of earth obscures that flame, Tender and truthful o'er all else below.

And what is he, whose heart-streams do not flow Back to their fount? Trust not the churl: for he No friend can cherish, softer flame can know,

Nor love his God. Dark mockery must it be, A father scorn'd,—to bend, to Him in heaven, the

knee.

VII.

But love from love withheld, still lives a debt
That claims the holiest, heart-heap'd gratitude :
Ev'n from the hour the parents' tear-drops wet
The infant forehead, has that debt accrued :
Still heaping gift on gift, and good on good;
Days, nights, and years of suffering met, not moan'd;
And, for their child, all toil and torture woo'd;
Earth ne'er beneath a loathlier ingrate groan'd,

Than he who leaves that debt unanswer'd and

unown'd.

VIII.

How pure is heaven, that aught more pure can know Than is a mother's love!-Draw gently near;

The place is hallow'd with a mother's woe! The taper hardly lights her trembling tear; And on her brow sit Agony and Fear. Clasping her child, and still and pale as stone, She bends, his breathing quick and low to hear; Explores his faint pulse, while she stays her own; And, on her pallid lip, crushes the struggling groan.

IX.

Thus hour by hour, till wears the night away;
Thus day by day, till Life is shadow'd o'er;
And beauty's spectral gleam illumes decay :
And is this naught? Let pensive Memory pore
O'er each sweet debt, the leal heart's loving lore,
Till fades the page! And, at the summons, lo!
A father's proud smile warms our hearts once more;
Relumed the eye that wont with love to glow;

And all forgot, awhile, our loneliness and woe!