Poems (Cook)/Lines written at Midnight

by Eliza Cook

 

LINES

written at midnight, in the anticipation of a dreaded bereavement.

Though to the passing world my heart
 A quiet, untouch'd thing may seem,
It bleeds, my Mother, bleeds for thee;
 My love, my sorrow, and my theme.

How many a night these aching eyes
 Have watch'd beside thy wasting form;
Watch'd, like the anxious mariner,
 Who marks and dreads the coming storm.

How many a time I've bent mine ear,
 To catch thy low and fainting breath;
And trembled lest thy soul had fled,
 Unnoticed, to the realms of death.

My Mother! thou wilt die, and leave.
 The world, with life and grief, to me;
Oh would the human branch might fade,
 When sever'd from its parent tree!

I do adore thee! such my first
 Fond, broken lisping did proclaim;
And all I suffer now but proves
 My shrine and homage still the same.

Time, that will alter breast and brow
 So strangely that we know them not;
That sponges out all trace of truth,
 Or darkens it with many a blot;

In me hath wrought its changes too,
 Alike in bosom, lip, and brain;
And taught me much, much that, alas!
 Is learnt but in the school of Pain.

I'm strangely warp'd from what I was,
 For some few years, in Life's fresh morn;
When Thought, scarce link'd with Reason's chain,
 Nor dared to question, doubt, or scorn.

Though young in years, I've learnt to look
 With trustless eye on all and each;
And shudder that I find so oft,
 The coldest heart with gentlest speech.

But one deep stream of feeling flows.
 With warm devoted love for thee;
A stream whose tide, without an ebb,
 Will reach Eternity's vast sea.

Time has not dimm'd, nor will it dim,
 One ray of that bright glowing flame
Which constant burns, like Allah's fire,
 Upon the altar of thy name.

But, ah! that name, so dearly prized,
 So fondly cherish'd, soon must be
A beacon quench'd; a treasure wreck'd—
 To live but in the memory.

Father of Mercy, is there naught
 Of tribulation Thou canst send
Upon my heart but this dire stroke,
 To scathe, to sadden, and to rend?

Wilt Thou not spare, at least awhile,
 The only one I care to call
My own? Oh! wilt thou launch the bolt,
 And crush at once my earthly all?

But this is impious. Faith and Hope
 Will teach me how to bear my lot;
To think almighty Wisdom best,
 To how my head, and murmur not.

The chast'ning hand of One above
 Falls heavy; but I'll kiss the rod;
He gives the wound, and I must trust
 Its healing to the self-same God.