Poems (Griffith)/On the Death of Miss Nannie C*****
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On the Death of Miss Nannie C*****.
DEAR, lovely girl, my thoughts are thine in this sweet twilight hour,
The young, the bright, the beautiful, gone like a stricken flower;
A thousand holy memories are rushing o'er my heart,
And there thine image seems once more to life and love to start;
I see thy dark and clustering curls around thy gentle face,
Thy soft black eye, thy rosy lip, and all thy witching grace,
And hear the cadence of thy voice come sweetly stealing by,
Like music from some fairy fount beneath the moonlight sky.
Oh couldst thou, sweet and gentle girl, on earth no longer dwell?
Had thy dear mother's love no power to hold thee with its spell?
Had thy sweet sister's pleading voice no tone to keep thee here?
Had life no charm to make thy home than paradise more dear?
Ah no, the bright, the angel band bent gently from the sky,
And wooed and won thee to their home, their own blest home on high.
And there, beneath the holy shade of myriad starry wings,
Thou wanderest 'mid the living flowers of heaven's own living springs,
To hear the lofty music tones, the hymns of rolling spheres,
Blend with thy own soul melodies through God's eternal years.
But oh! does deeper, tenderer love in those high realms have birth,
Than that which lives and throbs and weeps in human hearts on earth?
The thousand blossoms that have died beneath the Autumn blast,
Will bloom in future Springs as bright as in the Springs long past;
The rose and violet will lift their cups of white and blue,
As erst at morn and mournful eve to catch the falling dew;
The bright wing'd birds will pour their songs of love flora every tree,
The bright young streams with ringing shout leap onward to the sea;
But naught of these can ever pierce the cold and silent shade,
Where, with thine arms upon thy breast, thy lovely form is laid.
Yet come to us, dear Nannie, come, in this soft, stilly hour,
And tell us of thy happy home in Heaven's immortal bower;
I know that thou art there, for all thy thoughts beneath the skies
Were beauteous as an Angel's dream asleep in Paradise.
And, oh I ask that when thy hymns of ecstasy ascend,
Thoul't breathe one deep and holy prayer for thy poor, erring friend,
Who still, with weary step must tread, in loneliness and gloom,
Uncheered by flower or blessed star, her pathway to the tomb.
The young, the bright, the beautiful, gone like a stricken flower;
A thousand holy memories are rushing o'er my heart,
And there thine image seems once more to life and love to start;
I see thy dark and clustering curls around thy gentle face,
Thy soft black eye, thy rosy lip, and all thy witching grace,
And hear the cadence of thy voice come sweetly stealing by,
Like music from some fairy fount beneath the moonlight sky.
Oh couldst thou, sweet and gentle girl, on earth no longer dwell?
Had thy dear mother's love no power to hold thee with its spell?
Had thy sweet sister's pleading voice no tone to keep thee here?
Had life no charm to make thy home than paradise more dear?
Ah no, the bright, the angel band bent gently from the sky,
And wooed and won thee to their home, their own blest home on high.
And there, beneath the holy shade of myriad starry wings,
Thou wanderest 'mid the living flowers of heaven's own living springs,
To hear the lofty music tones, the hymns of rolling spheres,
Blend with thy own soul melodies through God's eternal years.
But oh! does deeper, tenderer love in those high realms have birth,
Than that which lives and throbs and weeps in human hearts on earth?
The thousand blossoms that have died beneath the Autumn blast,
Will bloom in future Springs as bright as in the Springs long past;
The rose and violet will lift their cups of white and blue,
As erst at morn and mournful eve to catch the falling dew;
The bright wing'd birds will pour their songs of love flora every tree,
The bright young streams with ringing shout leap onward to the sea;
But naught of these can ever pierce the cold and silent shade,
Where, with thine arms upon thy breast, thy lovely form is laid.
Yet come to us, dear Nannie, come, in this soft, stilly hour,
And tell us of thy happy home in Heaven's immortal bower;
I know that thou art there, for all thy thoughts beneath the skies
Were beauteous as an Angel's dream asleep in Paradise.
And, oh I ask that when thy hymns of ecstasy ascend,
Thoul't breathe one deep and holy prayer for thy poor, erring friend,
Who still, with weary step must tread, in loneliness and gloom,
Uncheered by flower or blessed star, her pathway to the tomb.