(To Miss E E.)
I cannot write, my tears are flowing fast,
Yet weeping is unnatural to me;
Oh! that this hour of bitterness was past—
The parting hour with all I love and thee
If I had never met or loved thee so,
To part would not have caused me this sharp pain;
Parting so oft occurring here below,
And they who part so seldom meet again.
Yet over land or sea, where'er I go,
My home, my friends, shall flit before my eyes—
And oft I anxiously shall wish to know,
If in thy bosom thoughts of me arise.
Oh, I will think of bygone days of glee,
Though on each point of bitter sorrow driven;
I will not bid thee to remember me,
But oh! see to it that we meet in Heaven.
1844.
WEEP WITH THOSE WHO WEEP.
(Mary Maud.)
O friends, I cannot comfort, but will share with you your grieving,
In the valley of the shadow where you sit in helpless tears;
Greater is the parting anguish, than the joy of first receiving
The sweet gift that was your treasure through five happy, golden
years
When I laid within your arms the dear babe that God had given,
There was hidden in the future all the tears that you must weep,
Ah! the little ones so tangled in our heart-strings, they are riven
In the parting, are but treasures lent not given us to keep