A look, that made me go from thee and weep,
A faith, that made thee watch, and kneel, and pray—
These, these are thine—O! sweet are then to me,
Mother! the thoughts of home, of my sweet home, and thee.
Thus I valued her. But she’s in her grave now, and I often go there to watch and weep, and please myself with the vain fancy, that her spirit is bending over me. I always feel holier after it—as if I had come from another world—had been beyond the grave—had unravelled the great mysteries of life and death, and could now look upon life unsway’d by that natural Atheism which ever clings to humanity, and mingles in all our aspirations for the future. Watching and prayer ever better us. But by the grave of a loved one, there are still holier influences. We see them through the mirror of feeling. If they had faults, they have them no longer; and their virtues, we canonize them—they are relics—they are talismans which we lay on our hearts, and they are holier for the contact.
Earth’s thoughts come not to the grave’s side. The idle, the giddy and gay, they do not jest here—the song of triumph ceases, the unfinished quip dies on the lip that made it. The famed, the haughty, the ambitious, they bring not their proud thoughts with them—they tread its holy precincts, and their schemes are forgotten. The school boy’s whistle is lower here, and the butterfly he chases so eagerly, scales the white palings and escapes—he will not follow him. The very flowers that bloom here, the osiers that swathe the grave of that little one and twine about the head stones—they teach us by their freshness, and our thoughts stir up the fountains in us, and the heart is hallowed by it.
Come hither, thou parent—a father perhaps. This was thy heart’s pride and passion. Hope and promise were his. You had already marked his path. Here were the flowers—there the thorns. You saw him in fancy, out of his boyhood—the youth—the young man—his cheek glowing for the contest. Death came—and you laid him here.
Come hither, thou parent—a mother perhaps. This was thy first born. You bore him on your heart; you nursed him; you hung over him; you wept and prayed for him as mothers only can do; and you too, have laid him here. The little form you decked so—the locks that swung over a brow of silver—the face with its beauty, and light, and sweetness, and all the innocency of happy childhood—the clear silver shout of his joy—the step that ran to thee—the lip that pouted for the morning and evening kiss—aye! here they are—look at them.
And who art thou, mourner?—thou that lookest not up to the glorious sky, or abroad on the fair face of the creation of God; but, wrapped in the selfishness and solitude of thy grief, standest here like a lone monument of dead men’s histories—who art thou? Thine eye is on that slab there; ’tis a maiden’s. Thou lovedst her perhaps; her heart beat to thee; her lip was free to thy wooing. She was decked for a bridal; the rite had sealed her thine; and death strewed thy bridal couch with rosemary, and rue, and the gloomy cypress.
And what do these here? They come here to weep, for it sanctifies them. They come from the roar, and bustle, and heartlessness of life, and they would listen awhile to the eloquence of the shrouded dead. O! the dead are eloquent! The voice is low, yet louder than that of many waters! They tell us that our loved ones were not ours! They tell us that they were lent to us, and have now been reclaimed! They tell us, that though saddening, ’tis sweet to think of them, for they tie us and our souls to the purity of Heaven!