winter.
55
Here rest thy feeble limbs, old man, 'tis not for thee to tread
The stormy earth, with such a weight of years upon thy head;
'Tis well that on thy weary path you saw our cot appear—
Now warm thy trembling hands, old man, and take our welcome cheer.
O'ercome he sinks—some tender chord is quivering in his breast,
Upon each face his dim eyes seem enquiringly to rest;
When in a sad desponding tone he murmurs—"strange, all strange:
The cot alone—the dear old home—appears devoid of change.
O! tell me, ye who now reside where first I breathed the air,
Are all who formed our household band named 'mongst the things that were?
I had a sister, loved and fair, and blythe as summer morn,
And she at least I hoped still cheered the home where we were born."
This aged grand-dame bends to hear—perchance her mind recalls
Some memory of the loved and lost, once glad within these walls.
Here converse ensues, which to them a wondrous truth unfolds,
Each in the other's shattered form their mother's child beholds-—
The stormy earth, with such a weight of years upon thy head;
'Tis well that on thy weary path you saw our cot appear—
Now warm thy trembling hands, old man, and take our welcome cheer.
O'ercome he sinks—some tender chord is quivering in his breast,
Upon each face his dim eyes seem enquiringly to rest;
When in a sad desponding tone he murmurs—"strange, all strange:
The cot alone—the dear old home—appears devoid of change.
O! tell me, ye who now reside where first I breathed the air,
Are all who formed our household band named 'mongst the things that were?
I had a sister, loved and fair, and blythe as summer morn,
And she at least I hoped still cheered the home where we were born."
This aged grand-dame bends to hear—perchance her mind recalls
Some memory of the loved and lost, once glad within these walls.
Here converse ensues, which to them a wondrous truth unfolds,
Each in the other's shattered form their mother's child beholds-—
