They may be lovely and beloved, but not like thee—the first!"
Your heart continues lonely and desolate; its strings are broken; its tenderest fibers wrenched; you continue to steal "beneath, the church-yard tree, where the grass grows green and wild," and there weep over the grave of your first maternal love; and like Rachael, refuse to be comforted because he is not. Your grief is natural, and only those who have lost their first-born can fully realize it:—
"Young mother! what can feeble friendship say,
To soothe the anguish of this mournful day?
They, they alone, whose hearts like thine have bled,
Know how the living sorrow for the dead;
I’ve felt it all,—alas! too well I know
How vain all earthly power to hush thy woe!
God cheer thee, childless mother! ’tis not given
For man to ward the blow that falls from heaven.