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? His sire who mocks, mocks too the Sire of Heaven! 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. Fragments of worlds, struck off when orbs collide, Thus should the heart revolve, in love and pride, 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; For Canaan's curse can still the irreverent smite.2 Rosy with earthly bloom, but radiant from above! IV. Oh, out of heaven, there is no love like theirs! 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? Lights the loathed lazar couch and dungeon deep; 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 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; And all forgot, awhile, our loneliness and woe! |