Classic Poem

ON THE DEATH OF HER DAUGHTER WHO HAD JUST TAKEN THE VEIL .

Shall grief perverse, with midnight gloom,
Thy fairest days o'ercast,
While prostrate by a daughter's tomb,
Thy ceaseless sorrows last?
Ere the glad morn her gates unfolds,
They wake thee with a sigh,
And evening's pensive shade beholds
Tears dim thy lucid eye.

Just was the debt to sacred grief
For her whose fate I sing,
Whose bloom was lovely, as 'twas brief,
And perished in its spring.
The earlier hours of passionate wo
A secret joy mysterious know,
To jealous sorrow dear;
I did not then forbid their flow,
But gave thee tear for tear.

But short the term that nature gives
To unavailing sighs;
The constant grief that longer lives,
Seems morbid to the wise.
Thy dear remains, oh shade beloved!
In their dark prison pent,
Sleep on by all our moans unmoved,
Nor hear our sad lament.

Nor funeral dirge, nor anguish wild
Relentless fate can stay;
The mother mourns in vain her child,
For death retains his prey.
Still, still, the heartless monster calls
For victims, still he waves
The sickly torch that man appals
Still howls around our frighted walls,
And covers earth with graves.

Still under the same cypress shade,
A common urn beneath,
Sees parents with their children laid,
Who followed them in death.
Down to that grave, by anguish worn,
Despairing should'st thou go,
Friendship a double loss must mourn,
Our tears anew must flow.

Or dost thou, with enforced sighs,
Mourn like the common train,
Who in their solemn liveries
Decorous sadness feign?
That it was sweet to weep, a school
Of yore maintained; but false their rule,
And false their poets sing;
From grief so lingering and so dull,
No joy can ever spring.

Deep in the glooms of savage wood,
The turtle wails her mate,
But reconciled to widowhood,
Forgets at length her state.
So faithful grief will strive in vain
Its cherished misery to retain
Nor lift its funeral pall;
Time will at last a triumph gain,
Who triumphs over all.

See by the smoking altar, where
Her Iphigenia bled,
The mother stand in wild despair,
And ask to join the dead.
But other cares her bosom knew,
The wings of time as swift they flew,
Brushed off the parent's tears;
Our Iphigenia's memory, too,
Must yield to fleeting years.

Since then those pinions, broad and strong,
Must bear, perforce, away
Thy melancholy, nurs'd so long,
Why wail the dull delay?
Chase the black poison from thy soul,
And time anticipate,
Thine altered mood let use control,
And reason vindicate.

Not so complained the Grecian dame,
But armed her noble breast;
Her nature's weakness she o'ercame,
Her natural sighs repress'd.
" For why should I consume, " she said,
With vain regrets my heart?
When smiling in its infant bed,
I knew one day its fragile thread
The fatal shears must part. "

Ah no! your rules, ye stoics cold,
In vain would I enforce —
Great God! thy temple's gates unfold,
And show our sole resource.
A hand divine alone can heal
The wounds the bleeding heart must feel,
Vain human counsels were;
Beside the sacred altar kneel,
The comforter is there.

Go, Christian mother, to the shrine,
And wing thy griefs above,
Submissive to the power divine,
That chastens in its love.
Tho' rankles yet thy recent smart,
Eternal wisdom own,
That breaks the tenderest ties apart,
To fix the undivided heart
Upon itself alone.

Ere the decree of fate went forth,
Already she had died;
Snatched from the dangerous snares of earth,
Heaven claimed her as its bride.
From that vain world its votaries paint
With each delusive die,
Shut out by every firm restraint,
Lived, for her God alone, the saint,
And knew no other tie.

Self-dedicated to the rite
Behold the victim move,
When stands prepared the altar bright
Of everlasting love.
The incense mounts, the wreaths are hung;
Attends the sacrifice;
But whence those shrieks the crowd among!
Her bridal hymn I should have sung, —
I chant her obsequies.

So fades a rose untimely strown,
Of all its petals shorn;
Plucked, with its budding charms half blown,
An altar to adorn.
Its perfumes sweet, at morning light,
Through all the fane it shed;
Eve came, and dark descending night
Saw all its glories fled.

Just Heaven! we mourn her young career
Cut short by sudden blight;
But own thy wisdom; every year
Was numbered in thy sight.
We should not mete by length of days
The term the saintly spirit stays,
Its trials to endure;
Death to the wretch whom none can praise,
Alone is premature.