Poems (Fields)/Burial of a German Emigrant's Child at Sea
BURIAL OF A GERMAN EMIGRANT'S CHILD AT SEA.
No flowers to lay upon his little breast,
No passing-bell to call his spirit home,
But gliding gently to his place of rest,
Parting, 'mid tears, at eve, the ocean foam.
No passing-bell to call his spirit home,
But gliding gently to his place of rest,
Parting, 'mid tears, at eve, the ocean foam.
No turf was round him,—but the lifting surge
Entombed those lids that closed so calm and slow,
While solemn winds, like a cathedral dirge,
Sighed o'er his form a requiem sad and low.
Entombed those lids that closed so calm and slow,
While solemn winds, like a cathedral dirge,
Sighed o'er his form a requiem sad and low.
Ah, who shall tell the maddening grief of love
That swept her heart-strings in that hour of woe?—
Weep, childless mother, but O, look above
For aid that only Heaven can now bestow.
That swept her heart-strings in that hour of woe?—
Weep, childless mother, but O, look above
For aid that only Heaven can now bestow.
Gaze, blue-eyed mourner, on that silken hair,—
Weep, but remember that thy God will stand
Beside thee here in all this, wild despair,
As on the green mounds of thy Fatherland.
Weep, but remember that thy God will stand
Beside thee here in all this, wild despair,
As on the green mounds of thy Fatherland.