Down the bright pathway winds, through veils of hush And wonderment. Unuttered yet, the chime The trees are sweetly troubled with bright words From new-alighted birds; And yet, -- Here,round my neck, are come to cling and twine, The arms, the folding arms, close, close and fain, All mine! I pleaded to, in vain, I reached for, only to their dimpled scorning, Down the blue halls of Morning; Where all things else could lure them on and on, Now here, now gone, From bush to bush, from beckoning bough to bough, With bird-calls of Come Hither! Ah, but now, Now it is dusk. — And from his heaven of mirth, A wilding skylark, sudden dropt to earth Along the last low sunbeam yellow moted, There pushes here, a little golden Boy, All fragrancy, all valor silver-throated, My Alison ! Closer than homing lambs against the bars At folding-time, that crowd, all mother warm, They crowd, they cling, they wreathe; And thick as sparkles of the thronging stars, Their kisses swarm. O Rose of being, at whose heart I breathe, Fold over; hold me fast In the dark Eden of a blinding kiss. And lightning heart's-desire, be still at last! Heart can no more, Life can no more, Than this. Josephine Preston Peabody MATERNAL GRIEF DEPARTED CHILD! I could forget thee once Though at my bosom nursed; this woeful gain Thy dissolution brings, that in my soul Is present and perpetually abides A shadow, never, never to be displaced Of Infancy, but still did breathe the air Those several qualities of heart and mind That Nature prompts them to display, their looks, Their starts of motion and their fits of rest, An undistinguishable style appears And character of gladness, as if Spring Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the spirit Of rejoicing morning were their own? The Mother, in her turns of anguish, worse Did she extract the food of self-reproach, As one that lived ungrateful for the stay By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed And tottering spirit. And full oft the Boy, Now first acquainted with distress and grief, Shrunk from his Mother's presence, shunned with fear Her sad approach, and stole away to find, In his known haunts of joy where'er he might, A more congenial object. But, as time Softened her pangs and reconciled the child To what he saw, he gradually returned, Like a scared Bird encouraged to renew To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to spread Faint color over both their pallid cheeks, And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air In open fields; and when the glare of day Is gone, and twilight to the Mother's wish Befriends the observance, readily they join In walks whose boundary is the lost One's grave, Which he with flowers had planted, finding there Amusement, where the Mother does not miss Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf rite Of pious faith the vanities of grief; For such, by pitying Angels and by Spirits Transferred to regions upon which the clouds Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed Those willing tears, and unforbidden sighs, And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow, |