Yet cease, my soul! oh, hush this vain lamenting, Lest in our wayward hearts we should forget Him, He leads our dear ones forth, and bids us seek them In a far distant home among the blest; So we have guides to Heaven's eternal city; And when our wandering feet would backward stray, The faces of our dead arise in brightness, And fondly beckon to the holier way.—Mrs. Norton. F ON SEEING A DECEASED INFANT. And this is death! how cold and still I stand and gaze upon the dead. But when I see the fair wide brow, When life and health were laughing there; I wonder not that grief should swell I wonder not that parents' eyes In gazing thus grow cold and dim, That burning tears and aching sighs Are blended with the funeral hymn ; The spirit hath an earthly part, That weeps when earthly pleasure flies, And earth would scorn the frozen heart That melts not when the infant dies. And yet why mourn? that deep repose Once more I gaze and swift and far The clouds of death in sorrow fly, I see thee like a new-born star, Move up thy pathway in the sky; The star hath rays serene, and bright, But cold and pale compared with thine, For thy orb shines with heavenly light, With beams unfading and divine. Then let the burthen'd heart be free, The tears of sorrow all be shed, And parents calmly bend to see The mournful beauty of the dead : Thrice happy-that their infant bears To heaven no darkening stains of sin; And only breathed life's morning airs Before its noon-day storms begin. Farewell! I shall not soon forget! My memory warmly treasures yet, Thy features calm and mildly sweet. But no, that look is not the last, We yet may meet where Seraphs dwell, Where love no more deplores the past, Nor breathes that withering word-Farewell. Peabody. Even such an awful soothing calm We sometimes see alight On Christian mourners, while they wait In silence, by some Churchyard gate, Their summons to the holy rite. And such the tones of love, which break The stillness of that hour, Quelling th' embitter'd spirit's strife— "The Resurrection and the Life, "Am I believe, and die no more." Unchang'd that voice-and though not yet And our hearts feel they must not break. |