Poems (Griffith)/My Birth-Day

by Mattie Griffith

My Birth-Day.

STRANGE feelings wildly throng around my heart
On this my natal day. They seem to come
Like mournful spirits from the distant past,
And from the dim, sad future. Down, far down
Into my soul I gaze, and memory,
The wizard, that bears sway in that lone realm,
Calls perished joys and hopes from out their graves,
And bids them glow, and live, and breathe, and I
Seem once again a happy child amid
The scenes of other days, with long-lost friends
Clasping my hand, or sitting at my side,
And murmuring in my ear their gentle tones
Of melody and love.

           My natal day!
In other, happier years, I used to hail
Its advent with a thrill of joy and pride
For then I deemed it but an added link
To a young life that would for ever wear
The lovely rose-tints of the morning heavens
That hung serene and beautiful above,
Unbroken by a storm-cloud; but to-day
A sigh, a tear, is in my soul to think
Wave after wave of my existence thus
Breaks on the shore of old Eternity,
And sinks to silence and to nothingness.
Here in my spirit's awful solitude
I muse upon the thousand hopes that rushed
Impatient to life's banquet, and expired
In tasting of the poison-cup they thought
A boon the gods might crave.

                My birth-day! Years
Have flown and left me a lone mourner. One
By one I've seen the deeply, dearly loved,
The friends and guardians of my childhood, fade
And wither like the leaves when Autumn sets
His many tinted signet on the woods.
Yet I, whose life in this drear month began,
Still linger darkly, sadly here to weep
For vanished stars and lovely blighted flowers
That shed upon my life, in brighter years,
Their lustre and their perfume. But with hopes
All crushed, and eyes bathed in the heart's best dew,
I lift my gaze above the earth, and read
Upon the far sky's blue and starry scroll,
A beautiful and holy promise. God
Watches and shields the lonely orphan here;
Ay, He who kindly tempers the cold wind
To the shorn lamb, will temper life's fierce storms
To her who calls upon His sacred name
In deep and fervent prayer.

               My natal day!
'Tis slowly melting in the twilight now,
And soon its tints along the western sky
That seem a rose-wreath on the brow of death,
Will pass away. My natal day, farewell!
Oh may'st thou, if thy light shall ever come
To me again on earth, behold the hopes,
That droop and fold within my lonely soul
Their broken pinions now, soar proudly
And revel, amid the glories of the sky.

Louisville Ky.