MOURNING.
I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.—Psalm xxxviii. 6.
Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.—Isaiah, lx. 20.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.—Matthew, v. 4.
O man! while in thy early years,
How prodigal of time!
Misspending all thy precious hours,
Thy glorious youthful prime!
Alternate follies take the sway;
Licentious passions burn;
Which tenfold force gives nature’s law,
That man was made to mourn.
Many and sharp the num’rous ills
Inwoven with our fame!
More pointed still we make ourselves,
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heaven-erected face
The smiles of love adorn,
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
See yonder poor, o’erlabour’d wight;
So abject, mean, and vile,
Who begs a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil;
And see his lordly fellow-worm
The poor petition spurn,
Unmindful tho’ a weeping wife
And helpless offspring mourn.
Yet let not this too much, my son,
Disturb thy youthful breast;
This partial view of human kind
Is surely not the best!
The poor, oppressed, honest man,
Had never, sure, been born,
Had there not been some recompense
To comfort those that mourn.
Burns.
God of my life, to thee I call,
Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;
When the great waterfloods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!
Did ever mourner plead with Thee,
And Thou refuse that mourner’s plea?
Does not Thy word still fix’d remain,
That none shall seek Thy face in vain?
Cowper.
We mourn for those who toil,
The slave who ploughs the main,
Or him who hopeless tills the soil
Beneath the stripe and chain;
For those who in the world’s hard race,
O’erwearied and unblest,
A host of restless phantoms chase,—
Why mourn for those who rest?
We mourn for those who sin,
Bound in the tempter’s snare,
Whom syren pleasure beckons in
To prisons of despair,
Whose hearts, by whirlwind passions torn,
Are wrecked on folly’s shore,—
But why in sorrow should we mourn
For those who sin no more?
We mourn for those who weep,
Whom stern afflictions bend
With anguish o’er the lowly sleep
Of lover or of friend;—
But they to whom the sway
Of pain and grief is o’er,
Whose tears our God hath wiped away
Oh! mourn for them no more!
Mrs. Sigourney.
When mourning o’er some stone I bend,
Which covers all that was a friend;
And from his voice, his hand, his smile,
Divides me for a little while;
Thou, Saviour, mark’st the tears I shed,
For Thou didst weep o’er Lazarus dead.
R. Grant.