Poems (Lambert)/We Met

by Mary Eliza Perine Tucker Lambert

WE MET.

WE met, and memory flew to joys and tears,
Back through the vista dim, of long-past years.
In my childhood's home I was a child again—
A home to me, save only in the name.

And yet I loved it, for there grew apace
Four lovely children ripening into grace;
If 'twas not home, they sisters were to me,
And even now their fairy forms I see.

Once by a tomb, alone I stood so drear—
Dropped on a mother's grave a daughter's tear.
A soft voice murmured, "She's my mother too;
Sister, I'll put some flowers there for you."

God bless the child, she was too fair for earth;
Such flowers as she should have immortal birth;
And so God took our darling home on high,
Where she will bloom to never fade and die.

No stranger was she in that home above,
Where she was greeted with a mother's love;
A wife stood waiting for a husband's child;
A sister welcomed with a gladness mild.

We met, and I to him brought back—not years,
But months deep fraught, alas, with joys and tears.
That child a maiden grown, stood by his side;
His light, his life, his darling, promised bride.

Again he stood by that sad bed of death,
And felt the painful throbbing of her breath.
"I am so weary that I fain would rest—
Oh, darling, place my head upon your breast."

We meet with hearts fast bound by mutual grief;
We knew that sympathy could give relief;
So when our stranger hands were joined together,
A lonely sister found a loving brother.