There was a withering tree, in the spring time,
Which on the lawn, seemed struggling to assume
The Autumn's hues amid the world's full green.
He faintly smiled, and said, "So do I fade."
Soon it was dead. He lingered slowly on.
Hopes came: hopes faded. From the early world
'Tis the same story. It was well for her,
In this her sorrow, she had learned to weep
In days of bliss, as she had read the page
Which tells of Jesus bearing his own cross.
His mother came, but Ellen was repelled
By the stern brow of one who met the shock
And would not quail. That hard and iron will
Was so unlike her firmness. She was one
Who had ruled abjects. Sorrow seemed a wrong.
The parting time drew near. And then as one
Who asked as one gives law. "This little boy
Should dwell with me. Thereby shall he attain
All discipline to form the noble man.
Even as I made his Father what he was,
So will I now, again, care for the child.
Let him with me. And he shall often come
And visit you. This surely will be wise."
We need not say that Ellen too was firm.
A mother's love! In all the world a power,
To educate as this! Could any wealth
Of other learning recompense this loss!
Would this stern woman ripen in his heart
Fruits, that angelic eyes beheld with joy?
"When the boy grew, at times she'd gladly send
With thanks, the child to all this proffered care."
But now—to send him now! Why at the thought
A darkness gathered over all the world.
From all things came a voice, "All, all alone,
The husband is not—the child far away."
There was strange meaning in the angry eye;
A strange defiance, and an unknown threat,
Enmity and a triumph. As if a triumph gained.
A nation crushed, her husband's mother looked,
No flush was on her face—her voice the same.
Coldly she said, farewell. And Ellen held
The child with firmer grasp, when she was gone.
Then she had sorrow that they thus should part;
For she felt all the reverence death made due,
And also mourned rejection of her love.
As the child slept one night, watched by his nurse,
She crossed the river on the bridge of logs,
To reach her parents. Under the bright stars
The Neshamony, and its hurried waves,
Rising and falling all around her path.
No peace in all the Heavens that she could see
Was like her peace. "I suffer here," she said,
"But suffering, I shall learn more love for all."
She had returned. Her footsteps died away,
Her parents stood yet in the open air,
Where they had parted with her for the night.
Then o'er the stream there came an awful cry.
It was her cry. Oh agony to hear!
It stilled all sounds besides. It seemed to make
The wide-arched Heavens one call to echo it.
Parents and others rushed there with affright,
In breathless terror. Nurse and child were gone.
Each wood around, and every forest road
Gleamed all the night with torches. But no cheer
Rose to proclaim a trace of faintest hope.
One traveler said, that on a distant road
He met a carriage, hurrying with strange speed,
And heard, in passing, cries of a young child.
In vain they follow. Hopeless they return.
Oh wondrous, the ingenious plan devised
By that poor mother to regain her child!
Her parents tried, as if for life and death
To give her aid: and saw that she must die:
For patience such as hers was all too grand
To linger long on earth. She day by day
Trod her old haunts. But never did she see
The Heaven, or beauteous world. Her pallid lips
Moved with perpetual prayer. And when she leaned
On those who loved her, the storm-tossed at rest,
She was as quiet as in days, when she
Was but an infant. When they spoke of hope
She smiled. It was a smile of love, not hope.
It was indeed simplicity to one,
Just on the threshold where His people pass,
And where, forever, they have more than hope.