A FATHER READING THE BIBLE.
’Twas early day, and sunlight stream’d
Soft through a quiet room,
That hush’d, but not forsaken seem’d,
Still, but with naught of gloom.
For there, serene in happy age
Whose hope is from above,
A father communed with the page
Of heaven’s recorded love.
Pure fell the beam, and meekly bright,
On his gray holy hair,
And touch’d the page with tenderest light,
As if its shrine were there!
But oh! that patriarch’s aspect shone
With something lovelier far—
A radiance all the spirit’s own,
Caught not from sun or star.
Some word of life e’en then had met
His calm, benignant eye;
Some ancient promise, breathing yet
Of immortality!
Some martyr’s prayer, wherein the glow
Of quenchless faith survives:
While every feature said—“I know
That my Redeemer lives!”
And silent stood his children by,
Hushing their very breath,
Before the solemn sanctity
Of thoughts o’ersweeping death.
Silent—yet did not each young breast
With love and reverence melt?
Oh! blest be those fair girls, and blest
That home where God is felt!
[This little poem, which, as its Author herself expressed in a letter to Mrs Joanna Baillie, was to her “a thing set apart,” as being the last of her productions ever read to her beloved mother, was written at the request of a young lady, who thus made known her wish “that Mrs Hemans would embody in poetry a picture that so warmed a daughter’s heart:”—
“Upon going into our dear father’s sitting-room this morning, my sister and I found him deeply engaged reading his Bible, and, being unwilling to interrupt such a holy occupation, we retired to the further end of the apartment, to gaze unobserved upon the serene picture. The bright morning sun was beaming on his venerable silver hair, while his defective sight increased the earnestness with which he perused the blessed book. Our fancy led us to believe that some immortal thought was engaging his mind, for he raised his fine open brow to the light, and we felt we had never loved him more deeply. After an involuntary prayer had passed from our hearts, we whispered to each other, ‘Oh! if Mrs Hemans could only see our father at this moment, her glowing pen would detain the scene; for even as we gaze upon it, the bright gleam is vanishing.’
“December 9, 1826.”
THE MEETING OF THE BROTHERS.[367]
——“His early days
Were with him in his heart.” Wordsworth.
The voices of two forest boys,
In years when hearts entwine,
Had fill’d with childhood’s merry noise
A valley of the Rhine:
To rock and stream that sound was known,
Gladsome as hunter’s bugle-tone.
The sunny laughter of their eyes,
There had each vineyard seen;
Up every cliff whence eagles rise,
Their bounding step had been:
Ay! their bright youth a glory threw
O’er the wild place wherein they grew.
But this, as day-spring’s flush, was brief
As early bloom or dew;
Alas! ’tis but the wither’d leaf
That wears th’ enduring hue!
Those rocks along the Rhine’s fair shore
Might girdle in their world no more.
For now on manhood’s verge they stood,
And heard life’s thrilling call,
As if a silver clarion woo’d
To some high festival;
And parted as young brothers part,
With love in each unsullied heart.
They parted. Soon the paths divide
Wherein our steps were one,
Like river branches, far and wide,
Dissevering as they run;
And making strangers in their course,
Of waves that had the same bright source.
Met they no more? Once more they met,
Those kindred hearts and true!
’Twas on a field of death, where yet
The battle-thunders flew,
Though the fierce day was wellnigh past,
And the red sunset smiled its last.
But as the combat closed, they found
For tender thoughts a space,
And e’en upon that bloody ground
Room for one bright embrace,
And pour’d forth on each other’s neck
Such tears as warriors need not check.
The mists o’er boyhood’s memory spread
All melted with those tears,
The faces of the holy dead
Rose as in vanish’d years;
The Rhine, the Rhine, the ever-blest,
Lifted its voice in each full breast!
Oh! was it then a time to die?
It was!—that not in vain
The soul of childhood’s purity
And peace might turn again.
A ball swept forth—’twas guided well—
Heart unto heart those brothers fell!
Happy, yes, happy thus to go!
Bearing from earth away
Affections, gifted ne’er to know
A shadow—a decay—
A passing touch of change or chill,
A breath of aught whose breath can kill.
And they, between whose sever’d souls,
Once in close union tied,
A gulf is set, a current rolls
For ever to divide;
Well may they envy such a lot,
Whose hearts yearn on—but mingle not.
[367] For the tale on which this little poem is founded, see L’Hermite en Italie.