Poems (Hale)/A Sketch
For works with similar titles, see A Sketch.
A SKETCH.
Bright and most beautiful she sank to rest;Not as the angry storm-wind, spent with rage,Ceases its roaring, to resume once moreIts march of devastation o'er the land;But as the summer breeze, that gently floatsAround our path, and wafts the rich perfumeOf Nature's glorious flowers, when sunset glows,And kindly lingers in the radiant west.
Scarcely had eighteen summers o'er her headTheir golden sunlight lavished. It was wellThat, as the summer floweret drooped and died,When breathed upon by Autumn's siroc lip,That lovelier flower should fold its bursting leaves,Which God's own touch had painted, that its bloomMight yet unfold in heaven's immortal bowers.
The hopes of many a glad and gushing heartWere garnered in her. That pale mother's eye,Dimmed by its midnight vigil at her couch,Shed o'er her rest the silent, secret tear.Oft to the throne of God her prayer arose,That He would spare that treasure of her heart.She was a Christian mother; and the prayer,"Thy will be done," though choked by many a sigh,And scarce articulate from excess of grief,Was yet the whisper of her bursting heart.
Life was extinct; not less in that young heart,The last sole relic of a mother's gems,Than in her earthly hopes, that suffering one.Widowed and childless in her misery,Where could that mother turn her asking eyeBetter than to His throne, whose grace is nearThe Christian mourner in his agony?He saw her anguish, heard the prayer of faith,And gently led her to her heavenly home,Where each bright jewel, lent her upon earth,Shines, fair and fadeless, in the courts of heaven.