Poems (Griffith)/The Young Mother
The Young Mother.
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO MRS. L. A. W., OF LITTLE ROCK.
OH how serenely soft that pale high brow,O'er which her clustering tresses stray, her eye, Dissolving in its sweet blue tenderness, As from its depths a mother's holy love Is gleaming like the light of heaven, her lips Just parted as the low and earnest prayer Of angel purity dies soft away In wild, sweet music. O'er her infant now In slumber "lightly bound," her gentle form Is bending low, while blessed, heaven-born hopes Are beaming forth from her unshadowed heart, And lighting up her pale and placid face As beautifully as the sunlight glows And trembles through a holy crystal fane. Close to her breast, her gently throbbing breast, Her young babe nestles as a thought of love Clings to the human soul. One little hand Is pressed in hers, and now a soft sweet smile Is stealing o'er its lovely cherub-face. Gently she whispers to it of its dear And absent father, and the tear-drop bright Is quivering on her eyelid like the dew On the blue violet's petal. And when soft Sweet slumber folds its calm, mysterious wing Upon her cherub's little breast, its quick Low breathings fall upon her listening ear Like notes of heaven.
Young mother, 'tis thy first Bright joy, thy first deep care—oh may it prove Thy latest blessing. Since we parted last Full many changes have passed o'er our lives, New ties around thy pure and noble heart Are twining, and they give to thy young life A bright wild charm. Thus may it ever be To thee—may all the bright and glittering links, Which hold thee here a happy prisoner On Time's dark shore, still form a blessed chain To bind thy spirit also to the loved Within the angel world. Ah, I can look With tearful joy upon thy added ties To life, and feel within my heart my own Are lessening fast. Oh may thy bud of love Expand, and prove thy deep heart's sweetest flower, And may ye both, in God's own Paradise, Be glorious blossoms on His Tree of Life.
Louisville, June 2d.