Classic Poem

Beside her Babe, who sweetly slept,
A widow'd mother sat and wept
O'er years of love gone by;
And as the sobs thick-gathering came,
She murmur'd her dead Husband's name
'Mid that sad lullaby.

Well might that lullaby be sad,
For not one single friend she had
On this cold-hearted Earth;
The sea will not give back its prey —
And they were wrapt in foreign clay
Who gave the Orphan birth.

Stedfastly as a star doth look
Upon a little murmuring brook,
She gazed upon the bosom
And fair brow of her sleeping Son —
" O merciful Heaven! when I am gone
" Thine is this earthly blossom! "

While thus she sat — a sunbeam broke
Into the room; — the Babe awoke,
And from his cradle smiled!
Ah me! what kindling smiles met there!
I know not whether was more fair,
The Mother or her Child!

With joy fresh-sprung from short alarms,
The smiler stretched his rosy arms,
And to her bosom leapt —
All tears at once were swept away,
And said a face as bright as day, —
" Forgive me! that I wept! "

Sufferings there are from Nature sprung,
Ear hath not heard, nor Poet's tongue
May venture to declare;
But this as Holy Writ is sure,
" The griefs she bids us here endure
She can herself repair! "