Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/198

Perchance, was nearer to her son, than you
Who smooth'd the pillow for his fever'd head,
Calling yourselves the living, tho' ye dwell
In death's own realm, beneath his lifted dart.
Ye gave his mother to the earth-worm's bed,
But can ye say that her seraphic smile
Beam'd not upon him, as he struggling lay
In the last mortal agony?
                                      Her lip
Hail'd her frail first-born to this world of tears
With rapture's speechless kiss. Know ye, how warm,
How eloquent its welcome to that clime
Which hath no death-pang?
                                            If celestial bands
Feel for the unknown habitants of clay,
A hallow'd train of guardian sympathies,
And fold their wings around them as they run
Time's slippery course, with what a flood of joy,
With what refin'd, exulting intercourse,
At Heaven's bright threshhold, when all ills are past,
A mother greets her child!
                                          'Tis o'er! 'Tis o'er!
All earthly strife in that soft sigh doth end.
Wrap the white grave-robe o'er that stainless form,
And lay it by her side, whose breast so long
Was the fond pillow for his golden hair.
Write o'er his narrow tomb, "'tis well! 'tis well!"
Then turn away and weep:—for weep we must,
When our most beautiful and treasur'd things
Fleet from this shaded earth.
                                            How can we see
Our rifled bowers of rest in ruin laid