The same in youthful look, the same in form;
The same the gentle voice I used to hear;
Though many a year hath passed, and many a storm
Hath dashed its foam around thy cruel bier.
Deep in the stormy ocean's hidden cave
Buried, and lost to human care and sight,
What power hath interposed to rend thy grave?
What arm hath brought thee thus to life and light?
I weep,—the tears my aged cheek that stain,
The throbs that once more swell my aching breast,
Embodying one of anxious thought and pain,
That wept and watched around that place of rest.
O leave me not, my child! Or, if it be,
That coming thus, thou canst not longer stay,
Yet shall this kindly visit's mystery
Give rise to hopes that never can decay.
Dear cherished image from thy stormy bed!
Child of my early woe, and early joy!
'Tis thus at last the sea shall yield her dead,
And give again my loved, my buried boy.
[Footnote 82: A philosophical and religious writer of much merit and earnestness; author of a volume of poems; for a long time professor of moral and mental philosophy in Bowdoin College. A native of New Hampshire.]
* * * * *
=Jacob Leonard Martin,[83] 1803-1848.=
=361=. THE CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE.
Tomb of the mighty dead,[84] illustrious shrine,
Where genius, in the majesty of death,
Reposes solemn, sepulchred beneath,
Temple o'er every other fane divine!
Dark Santa Crocé, in whose dust recline
Their mouldering relics whose immortal wreath.
Blooms on, unfaded by Time's withering breath,
In these proud ashes what a prize is thine!
Sure it is holy ground I tread upon;
Nor do I breathe unconsecrated air,
As, rapt, I gaze on each undying name.
These monuments are fragments of the throne
Once reared by genius on this spot so fair,
When Florence was the seat of arts and early fame.