The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 9, August, 1836

THE
DEVOTED TO
Au gré de nos desirs bien plus qu'au gré des vents. Crebillon's Electre . As we will, and not as the winds will.
RICHMOND: T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR. 1835-6.

VOL. II. RICHMOND, AUGUST, 1836. NO. IX.
T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY. “Come, lay thine hand upon her, and she shall live.” Matthew 9th and 18th.
Death cometh to the chamber of the sick. The ruler's daughter, like the peasant's child, Grows pale as marble. Hark, that hollow moan Which none may help, and then, the last, faint breath Subsiding with a shudder! The loud wail Bespeaks an idol fallen from the shrine Of a fond parent's heart. A wither'd flower Is there, oh mother, where thy proudest hope Solac'd itself with garlands, and beheld New buddings every morn. Father, 'tis o'er! That voice is silent, which had been thy harp, Quickening thy footstep nightly toward thy home, Mingling, perchance, an echo all too deep Even with the temple-worship, when the soul Should deal with God alone. What stranger-step Breaketh the trance of grief? Whose radiant brow In meekness, and in majesty doth bend Beside the bed of death? “She doth but sleep , The damsel is not dead .” A smother'd hiss Contemptuous rises from the wondering band Who beat the breast and raise the licens'd wail Of Judah's mourning. Look upon the dead! Heaves not the winding-sheet? Those trembling lids— What peers between their fringes, like the hue Of dewy violet? The blanch'd lips dispart, And what a quivering, long-drawn sigh restores Their rose-leaf beauty! Lo, the clay-cold hand Graspeth the Master's, and with sudden spring That shrouded sleeper, like a timid fawn, Hides in her mother's bosom! Faith's strong root Was in the parent's spirit, and its boon How beautiful! O mother, who dost gaze Upon thy daughter, in that deeper sleep Which threats the soul's salvation, breathe her name To that Redeemer's ear, both when she smiles In all her glowing beauty on the morn, And when, at night, her clustering tresses sweep, Her downy pillow, in the trance of dreams, Or when at pleasure's beckoning she goes forth, Or to the meshes of an earthly love Yields her young heart! Be eloquent for her! Take no denial, till that gracious hand Which rais'd the ruler's dead, give life to her— That better life, whose wings surmount the tomb!