THE YOUNG MOTHER.
BY GRENVILLE MELLEN.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
WORDSWORTH
I.
A young and gentle mother,
She bows above her boy,
And a tear is in her downcast eye,
But ’tis the tear of joy—
Of one whose few fair summers
On golden wings have sped,
Like childhood’s dreams of Paradise,
Above her sainted head.
Loved, ere her life’s flush morning
Had kindled into day,
And worshipped, as she wooed the flowers
That bloomed around her way,
By one whose warm affections
On her wondrous beauty hung,
And their first taintless tribute gave
To the shrine to which they clung!
II.
A young and gentle mother—
Still beautiful, but pale
With sleepless but unwearied watch,
Alike through joy and wail.
A mother!—yet believing
Life’s duties scarce begun—
Whose childhood seemed of yesterday
In its unclouded sun;
So early had the story
Of idol Love been told—
So early had her virgin heart
Been gathered to its fold!
III.
And he who won her—where is he,
In this her day of pride,
When every hope she claimed before,
By this grew dim and died!
So priceless was the treasure
Her throbbing bosom bore,
So centered was her spirit now
On one she could adore!
Where is he!—Ah! her vision
Is of shadowy ships and seas—
And for him the unuttered prayer
Is poured on bended knees.
Each day in thought she follows
His stormy ocean track,
And every dreamy midnight still
Her pillow brings him back.
For he—for distant regions
Torn early from her side,—
Had parted, with his heart in tears,
From that outsobbing bride.
IV.
Long time afar he lingered,
And oft the message came
Of fadeless love—and of cruel fate
The tale was still the same.
Years fled—and still he wandered—
In one long dream of home,
And prattling voices round its hearth—
An exile, doomed to roam.
V.
At length her leaping spirit
Its promised bliss had found,
And she heard its pulses quick and loud
Beat to the welcome sound.
He on the bounding waters
Had cast himself once more,
To greet that home, and hearth, and bride,
That rose above their roar
Like lights amid a tempest—
Bright beacons of the land,
Where all we love shall hail us soon,
A joy-inspiring band!
VI.
’Twas then I saw that mother,
And babe with silken hair,
And all a mother’s pride and hope,
Just dashed with fear, was there.
Her head upon his temple
Was stooped in pensive rest,
Mingling its light, uncumbered locks
With those that veiled her breast;
Her eye, just dropped in shadow,
Looked melancholy down,
And the tear that glittered from its depths
Was not of grief alone—
But the still look of thankfulness
That o’er her features fell,
Lent even to the tears a beam
That told you all was well!
One arm around her idol
Protectingly was flung,
The other, as of one in dreams,
Beside her aimless hung.—
· · · · ·
VII.
O Innocence and Beauty!—
And Youth, with all its flowers,
When they together round us come
What a heritage is ours!
Who ever dreams a sepulchre
O’er such can darkly close,
Or the heart’s sun e’er set in clouds,
That robed in lustre rose!
· · · · ·
VIII.
Alas! that gentle mother—
I saw her not again,
Till, in my village wanderings,
I joined the burial train.
They told me, as we silent wheeled
Among the verdant graves,
That he, her first—last hope on earth,
Was snatched into the waves!—
And, ever after, that her cheek,
Like her infant’s eye, grew dim,
And her waning life was but a prayer,
Or quiet, lonely hymn.—
And thus her passing spirit
Beheld her infant’s go,
’Till all that lit her pilgrimage
Was shattered at a blow.
Then, pointing to the tomb, her feet
Began their faltering way
Through earth’s last farewell faded bloom,
To Immortality!