The low, heart-broken, and wailing strain. Of a mother that mourns her children slain: 66 'I have made the crags my home, and spread On their desert backs my sackcloth bed; I have eaten the bitter herb of the rocks, I have wept till I could not weep, and the pain In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky. "Ye were foully murdered, my hapless sons, When he strove with the heathen host in vain, "But I hoped that the cottage-roof would be A safe retreat for my sons and me; And that while they ripened to manhood fast, They should wean my thoughts from the woes of the past; And my bosom swelled with a mother's pride, As they stood in their beauty and strength by my side. Tall like their sire, with the princely grace Of his stately form, and the bloom of his face. Oh, what an hour for a mother's heart, When I clasped their knees and wept and prayed, "The barley-harvest was nodding white, When my children died on the rocky height, And the reapers were singing on hill and plain, The sun is dim in the thickening sky, And the clouds in sullen darkness rest Where he hides his light at the doors of the west. Great Barrington, 1824. "United States Literary Gazette," April 1, 1824. I THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL. SAW an aged man upon his bier, His hair was thin and white, and on his brow A record of the cares of many a year;— Cares that were ended and forgotten now. And there was sadness round, and faces bowed, Then rose another hoary man and said, In faltering accents, to that weeping train: Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast, "Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled, O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain head. "Why weep ye then for him, who, having won While the soft memory of his virtues, yet, Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set? "His youth was innocent; his riper age Marked with some act of goodness every day; And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage, Faded his late declining years away. Meekly he gave his being up, and went To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent. "That life was happy; every day he gave No chronic tortures racked his aged limb, "And I am glad that he has lived thus long, And glad that he has gone to his reward; Nor can I deem that Nature did him wrong, Softly to disengage the vital cord. For when his hand grew palsied, and his eye Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die." |