Poems (Hornblower)/"She sorroweth not as one without hope"
"She sorroweth not as one without hope."
She sat in the soft and twilight hours,In the lovely scene of her own green bowers;The bright blue sky was over her spread,On the velvet lawn she pillowed her head,And around her all sweets of earth and airRejoiced in the breeze, for that scene was fair.
Her eye on the distant landscape fell,The groves and the river she loved so well; She traced its windings through vale and glade,And gazed on their thousand hues of shade;And the soft low notes of the birds were there,And gently they fell on her listening ear.
Yes! all was beauty and gladness round,Yet her warm young tears bedewed that ground,And she dared not breathe on the evening airThe wish of her heart, in a scene so fair;For while all in the rapture of life was blest,That youthful mourner was wishing for rest.
She wished for the home, where no tears and sighsArc blent with the spring's sweet melodies;Where memory is but a tender dream,To make the future more brightly beam,And a hope immortal and deathless is fraughtWith the glowing hues of an angel's thought.
O'er her hope of earth came an early blight,And the grave had shrouded the eyes whose lightWas sweeter to her than the morning beam,And faded for ever was life's young dream;And though all was radiant, above and around,Yet her thoughts were away upon one green mound.
That far dark grave! oh! her heart was there;In vain all nature was bright and fair;For dearer to her was that one dim spot,By all beside despised, forgot;And she sighed to think, as her tears fell fast,That upon that grave she had gazed her last.
But she raised her eyes to the evening star,As it beamed in its placid light afar,And a hope as bright to her heart returned,And with deeper and holier thoughts it burned;For to her that signal seemed to say,That her night of affliction should pass away.
And she hailed the signal, and checked her sighs,And opened her heart to the melodiesThat softly breathed around, above,And touched her griefs with a heavenlier love;And she thought with rapture to meet him there,And nature again looked bright and fair!