Lydia Sigourney

“ Could shut the sleeping rose.—This is your wont,
Ye boist'rous whisperers of your Maker's wrath,
Who vaunt yourselves amid the troubled clouds
One awful moment, and the next are gone
Ye know not whither.—
—Man is like to you.—
His whirlwind passions nerve him, and he tears
The realm of nature,—marks his path with wrecks,
And chasms, and sepulchres,—and then returns
From war's dire game,—perchance to sigh away
His soul in love like the soft summer gale
On Beauty's cheek,—and then lies down to mix
With the same dust that soil'd his chariot wheels.—
—Oh Thou! ”

“ Had stamp'd upon those features, and the mind,
The ethereal mind debased.—
—She too was near,
Who at God's altar gave her holiest vow
In all the trusting confidence of love
To this her chosen friend.—On her young cheek
There was a cankering grief,—and the pale trace
Of beauty's rosebud nipp'd.—
—Something I said,
But faint and brokenly of former days,
When in the paths of science and of hope,
We walk'd, twin-hearted.—Then there came a peal
Of vacant laughter from those bloated lips,
And the swoll'n hand with trembling haste was stretch'd
For friendship's grasp. ”

“ THE DEAD INFANT.
I had a little tender flower,
I nursed it in my choicest bower,—
No storm disturb'd the guest;
And even if the nightly dew
Hung heavy on its head,—I flew
To warm it in my breast.—
And though to this my days were lent,—
For this,—my nights unslumbering spent.—
Yet could I not repent,—
A nameless pleasure sooth'd my care,
I loved the plant,—I saw 't was fair,
And knew by God 't was lent.
When watching o'er its balmy rest,
I pray'd,—"Oh be this blossom blest,
Although in tears 't was sown;" ”

“ My dull heart slept. Its panoply was off,—
The festal hour had lull'd it, and the dew,
Swept from the flowers of brief Prosperity,
Fell like an opiate on it. The world's star,
Was dominant.—And so it coldly slept
Even in the house of God. The wakeful ear,
That trusty sentinel, essay'd in vain
To arouse its lethargy.—The organ pour'd
Such full, exulting melody, so claim'd
From all the living one pure hymn of praise,
That rapture's flush burn'd on the brighten'd cheek,
But on the secret altar of the heart ”

“ Deep sadness overwhelms the wanderer's soul;
And the light tongue of those who idly strive
To laugh away dejection,—is a probe
To the fresh, quivering wound.—Perchance, the morn
Whose kindling blushes tint the uncolour'd sky,
Reminds him of that roseate brow,—now pale,
And bloodless for his sake.—The evening star
Restores those blissful walks,—when first he found
That Heaven, as with a wreath of Eden's flowers,
Had bound their sympathies.—The full-orb'd moon
Reveals upon her silver page, those hours
So exquisite to thought,—when speech was sighs ”

“ Take morning's wing, and fly from zone to zone,
To Earth's remotest pole, and ere old Time
Can shift one figure on his dial plate
Haste to the frigid Thule of mankind,
Where the scant life-drop freezes.—Or go down
To Ocean's secret caverns, 'mid the throng
Of monsters without number, which no foot
Of man hath visited, and yet returned
To walk among the living.—Or the shroud
Of midnight wrap around thee, dense and deep,
Bidding thy spirit slumber.—
Hop'st thou thus
To 'scape the Almighty, to whose piercing eye
Morn's robe and midnight's vestment are the same? ”

“ When the brow is blanched,
And the cold, quivering lip doth feebly spurn
Time's last poor water-drop—then be thou near;
Yea, when the dull ear to affection's tone
No longer vibrates, lift thy fervent prayer
And to the waiting angels' outspread wing,
And to the Everlasting Shepherd's arms,
Commend the parting soul.
When the pale clay
That love hath worshipped, to the open grave
In funeral vestments cometh, stand thou there,
And by the might of thine ascended Lord
Adjure the pit to render back its trust
A glorious body when the archangel's trump
Heralds eternity. ”

“ Guided the weary needle.
But in vain
We stand communing with the faithless tomb
That cast thee forth.—The strong-cemented rock
Lays claim to immortality,—but dust
Man's dust, must yield each element a part,
To pay Creation's loan, nor can he cling
To the brief memory of a shadowy race,
Save through his deeds.—
O Woman, nurse of Man!—
Make not thy grave beneath the imposing arch,
Or the drear pyramid;—enshrine thyself
Amid thy buried virtues, in the heart
Of him who loves thee, make thy monument
The graces of thine offspring, and the thanks
Of all who mourn. ”

“ That peaceful smile which Death did leave thy clay,
After his conquest o'er it. But the turf
On thy lone grave was trodden—while I deemed
Thee meekly musing o'er the classic page,
Loving and loved amid the studious band
As erst I left thee.
Sister!—toils and ills
Henceforth are past, for knowledge without pain,
A free, translucent, everlasting tide,
Doth fill thy spirit. Thou no more hast need
Of man's protecting arm,—for thou may'st lean
On His unchanging throne, who was thy trust
Even from thine early days. 'Tis well! 'Tis well! ”

“ Alike the despot and the slave they hate,
And rise firm [1] columns of a happy state.
To them content is bliss,—and labour health,
And knowledge power, and meek religion, wealth.
The farmer, here, with honest pleasure sees
The orchards blushing to the fervid breeze,
His bleating flocks, the shearer's care which need,
His waving woods, the wintry hearth that feed,
His hardy steers that break the yielding soil,
His patient sons, who aid their father's toil,
The ripening fields, for joyous harvest drest,
And the white spire that points a world of rest. ”

“ A long embrace succeeds,—a rending sigh,—
A secret prayer of speechless agony,—
And then the prince his parting grief exprest,
With broken accents, and a throbbing breast,
As sighs in feeble tone, with laboring breath,
The hollow farewell from the bed of death.—
—"Depart in peace!—for thus that God ordains,
Who guides thy wanderings and will sooth thy pains,
Where'er thou journeyest, or whate'er thy care,
My heart shall follow, and my spirit share.
Look to the heavens!—for earth can yield no balm,
To cheer my sorrow, or my soul to calm. ”

“ Their palm-tree's shade, their fathers' soil;
Shall blest Benevolence extend
Her angel reign from sea to sea,
Nor yet one glance of pity bend
Deserted Africa! on thee?—
Did Nature bid the torrid skies
Glare fiercely o'er thy desert glade?—
In heathen gloom benight thine eyes
And cloud thy brow with ebon shade?—
And must thy brother's hatred find
A doom that Nature never gave?—
A curse Creation ne'er design'd,—
The fetter, and the name of slave?—
Haste! ”

“ Infant breasts thy wounds regret,
"Nous vous aimons La Fayette."
Sires, who sleep in glory's bed,
Sires, whose blood for us was shed,
Taught us, when our knee we bend,
With the prayer thy name to blend:
Shall we e'er such charge forget?
No!—"Nous aimons La Fayette."
When our blooming cheeks shall fade,
Pale with time, or sorrow's shade,
When our clustering tresses fair
Frosts of wintry age shall wear,
E'en till Memory's sun be set,
"Nous vous aimons La Fayette." ”

“ For this a voice of gratitude hath past
O'er the broad ocean-wave, and thousands bear
Your name upon their lips, in the hushed hour of prayer.
There is a cry for knowledge, from that clime
Which held her lamp to earth's benighted eye,
In the dim ages of remembered time:
Rise! shed the beams of immortality
On the mind's prison-house: so shall your fame
Endure, when this world's pomp hath fed Destruction's flame. ”

“ Who in thy dark and watery deep doth rest,—
The stern Flaminius,—he who saw defeat
The eagle standard quell, and fled to hide
His burning shame with thee, holding the frown
And grasp of pitiless Death, less terrible
Than Rome's upbraiding eye.—
In earth he dream'd
To strike a root eternal, and to hang
Unfading garlands on the fickle sky
Of stormy honour.—Even then was spread
Thy bulrush pall for him,—and from their cells
Thy scaly monsters throng'd at his approach
To gaze upon him. ”

“ Nor blancheth 'neath stern Winter's direst frost?
Who hath thy keys, thou deep? Who taketh note
Of all thy wealth? Who numbereth the host
That find their rest with thee? What eye doth scan
Thy secret annal, from creation locked
Close in those dark, unfathomable cells—
Which he who visiteth, hath ne'er returned
Among the living?
Still but one reply?
Do all thine echoing depths and crested waves
Make the same answer?— of that One Dread Name—
Which he, who deepest plants within his heart,
Is wisest, though the world may call him fool. ”

“ The thunders sleep;
But many a stricken soul shall mourn their ire;
Still smiles the sun;—but many an eye shall weep
Ere to his sea-girt chamber he retire:
The expected guest—the sister fair,—
The child, with fond, confiding air,—
The friend, who with an angel's mein
Illumed the dear, domestic scene—
Ah! ask not—ask not where they are,
Or why they come not!—See despair
Rend from the mourning sire
The few thin remnants of that silver hair,
Which, frosted o'er with age, e'en ruthless Time could spare.
Who to the orphan's arms its treasure shall restore? ”

“ Where do his measured footsteps tend?—He cometh forth to die!
To die! No sickness bows his frame, or checks the flowing breath,
Say, why doth Justice sternly rise to do the work of death?
Still boasts his brow a bitter frown, his eye a moody fire.
Oh Guilt! unbind thy massive chains, and let the soul respire.
He standeth on the scaffold's verge, the holy priest is near,
Yet no contrition heaves his breast, or wrings the parting tear;
O! wilt thou bear with cold disdain the pangs of mortal strife,
And thus in mad defiance drain the forfeit cup of life? ”

“ And far more eloquent, there comes a dirge
O'er the hoarse wave. "All that we boast of man,
Is as the flower of grass."
Farewell—Farewell!
Pass on with Wesley, and with all the great
And good of every nation. Yea!—pass on
Where the cold name of sect, which sometimes throws
Unholy shadow o'er the heaven-warmed breast,
Doth melt to nothingness—and every surge
Of warring doctrine, in whose eddying depths,
Earth's charity was drowned, is sweetly lost
In the broad ocean of eternal love. ”

“ Sleep sweeter than the labouring hind who steals
Weary, to his hard pallet?—
——What hath dimm'd
The royal smile?—And stamp'd the darken'd seal
Of moody madness on that straining eye?—
There is a shepherd's harp in these high halls,
And the demoniac monarch loves its tone
Of tender minstrelsy,—yet hates the hand
That calls it forth. Oh King! the curse hath fallen
On thee, and on thy people. ”

“ Mid the trodden turf is an open grave,
And a funeral train where the wild flowers wave,
For a manly sleeper doth seek his bed
In the narrow house of the sacred dead,
And the soil hath scantily drank of the tear,
For the red-brow'd few are the mourners here.
They have lower'd the prince to his resting spot,
The deep prayer hath swell'd, but they heed it not ”

“ When thou sawest his deeds in the withering vale,
Didst thou, lingering, list to his varnished tale?
And she answered not, but strove to fold
In her bosom the blight of his dalliance bold.
Yet ye still have a voice to the musing heart,
Tree, Stream and Rose, as ye sadly part,
"We are symbols, ye say, of the hasting doom
Of youth, and of health, and of beauty's bloom,
When Disease, with a hectic flush doth glow,
And Time steal on with his tress of snow." ”

“ Mothers can tell how oft
In the heart's eloquence, the prayer goes up
From a sealed lip, and tenderly hath blent
With the warm teaching of the sacred tale
A voiceless wish, that when that timid soul,
New in the rosy mesh of infancy,
Fast bound, shall dare the billows of the world,
Like that exploring Dove, and find no rest,
A pierced, a pitying, a redeeming Hand
May gently guide it to the Ark of peace. ”

“ Why need'st thou steal, changing to thine own hue
Of ghastly pale, the youthful mother's brow;
And for her nightly watchings, leaving nought
In payment, but a piece of marble clay.
And the torn heart-strings in her bleeding breast,
—Come to the aged, he hath sorely trod
Time's rugged road, until his staff is broke,
And his feet palsied, and his friends all gone;
Put thy cold finger on life's last faint spark,
And scarcely gasping he shall follow thee. ”

“ Like fair twin-lillies, which some grazing kid
In wantonness had cropt.—"My sons!—My sons!—
Light of my eyes!" the astonish'd father cried,—
"My teachers in the law!—whose guileless hearts,
And prompt obedience warn'd me oft to be
More perfect with my God!"—
To earth he fell,
Like Lebanon's rent cedar; while his breast
Heaved with such groans as when the labouring soul
Breaks from its clay companions' close embrace.—
—The mourning mother turn'd away and wept,
Till the first storm of passionate grief was still. ”

“ He shall reign in power when you fade away,
When ye darkly cower in your vapoury hall,
Tintless, and naked, and noteless all.
The Soul!—The Soul!—with its eye of fire,
Thus, thus shall it soar when its foes expire,
It shall spread its wings o'er the ills that pained,
The evils that shadowed, the sins that stained,
It shall dwell where no rushing cloud hath sway,
And the pageants of earth shall have melted away. ”

“ Sublime ambassador from soul to soul!—
By thee Hope sends her passport,—Hate defies,—
Genius a flood ethereal bids roll,
And Love speaks what the treacherous tongue denies.
To thee, all languages of earth are known,
Unbought by student's toil thy science flows,
Alike to thee the hovel or the throne,
The sands of Afric, or the polar snows.—
When Grief her darts of agony doth hurl,
Ruling the heated brain with baneful sway,
Thou, through thy silent, mystic gate of pearl,
Dost kindly give the liquid sorrow way. ”