TO AN ORPHAN.
Thou hast been rear’d too tenderly,
Beloved too well and long,
Watch’d by too many a gentle eye:
Now look on life—be strong!
Too quiet seem’d thy joys for change,
Too holy and too deep;
Bright clouds, through summer skies that range
Seem ofttimes thus to sleep,—
To sleep in silvery stillness bound,
As things that ne’er may melt;
Yet gaze again—no trace is found
To show thee where they dwelt.
This world hath no more love to give
Like that which thou hast known;
Yet the heart breaks not—we survive
Our treasures—and bear on.
But oh! too beautiful and blest
Thy home of youth hath been!
Where shall thy wing, poor bird! find rest,
Shut out from that sweet scene?
Kind voices from departed years
Must haunt thee many a day;
Looks that will smite the source of tears
Across thy soul must play.
Friends—now the alter’d or the dead,
And music that is gone,
A gladness o’er thy dreams will shed,
And thou shalt wake—alone.
Alone! it is in that deep word
That all thy sorrow lies;
How is the heart to courage stirr’d
By smiles from kindred eyes!
And are these lost?—and have I said
To aught like thee—be strong?
—So bid the willow lift its head,
And brave the tempest’s wrong!
Thou reed! o’er which the storm hath pass’d—
Thou shaken with the wind!
On one, one friend thy weakness cast—
There is but One to bind!