Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/274

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274
MRS. SIGOURNEY'S POEMS.

The venom. At thine early tomb we bend,
Taking that deep monition to our souls,
Which through embowering verdure seems to sigh
On every breeze—how frail is earth's best hope,
And how immortal that, which roots in Heaven.



"HINDER THEM NOT."

"'Suffer little children to come unto me, and hinder them not. But you hinder them by your example, and not by encouraging them. Their course ought to be upward:—do not hinder them."
Rev. Mr. Taylor, of the Seamen's Chapel, Boston.


Lock'd in the bosom of the earth
    The little seed its heart doth stir,
And quickening for its mystic birth,
    Bursts from its cleaving sepulchre,
The aspiring head, the unfolding leaf,
    Exulting in their joyous lot,
Turn grateful towards the Eye of Day,
    Hinder them not.

Thus, do the buds of being rise
    From cradle-dreams, like snow-drop meek,
While through their mind-illumin'd eyes
    A deathless principle doth speak,
Already toward a brighter sphere
    They turn, from this terrestrial spot,—
Fond parents!—florists kind and dear!
    Hinder them not.