Poems (McDonald)/The Dying Boy

by Mary Noel McDonald

For works with similar titles, see The Dying Boy.

THE DYING BOY.

'Twas early summer, pleasant June had come,
Flinging her coronals on every bough,
And from the soft southwest, with perfume rife,
The light-winged zephyrs wooed the coy young flowers.
The brooks like playful children babbled on,
Loosed from their icy bondage, and the birds,
Nature's unwearied choir, tuned their clear notes,
And in the wild-wood shades held revelry.
Earth wore her robes of light and loveliness;
There were no clouds athwart the deep blue heaven,
Naught that might tell of darkness or decay:
But in a cottage home, where the green vines
Clambered about the casement, and the sun
Peeped stealthily amid the clustering boughs,
And the red rose gave her sweet odors forth—
There Sorrow sat, and claimed her heritage
In human hearts.

          Upon his lowly couch
Lay like a broken lily, a fair child
Just numbering then his tenth bright summer.
His clasped hands were white as braided snow-wreaths,
And his silken hair, once waving lightly
In the summer's breath, now wet with death dews,
Fell all heavily on his pure forehead.
There was no rose-teint on his wasted cheek,
It seemed like Parian marble—and his eye,
The lid half drawn, shone faintly, as a star
'Mid parting clouds.

          Beside him leaned, heart-sick
With hope deferred, and worn with ceaseless vigils,
She who had borne him. There was much that told
Of patient suffering in her pallid face,
For she had struggled earnestly, till faith
Could spread its eagle pinions and soar up,
From the cold bed where she must lay her boy,
To his bright spirit-home. Oh, only they
Who with a mother's speechless agony,
Have watched the life-blood ebb, and the young cheek
Grow pale; counted each feeble pulse, and seen
The full round limbs shrink in undue proportion—
Only they, can tell a mother's sorrow,
And may own, how hard to bow submissively,
And say, "Thy will be done."

          Hush! he is waking,
The dim eyes re-open, and the white lips,
Long sealed as though in death, find utterance.
She had thought he slept, but when he turned
Those soft dark orbs to hers, she saw that tears
Were on their silken fringe, and o'er his face
Passed a deep shade of gloom. "Mother," he said,
And the faint tones were tremulous with grief,
"Mother, I know how soon the time will come
When I must die; and as I lay but now,
And thought of the sweet spring and summer days
Which, each revolving year, make the green earth
So beautiful, and how they all would pass
Over my grave, and I should see them not—
I thought how sad it were to be forgotten.
Will it be so, dear mother? I would care
But little if all others should forget;
But I was thinking, that you too, perhaps,
When you grew older, and your tears were dried,
And I had slumbered long, you might forget
The timid boy who wandered by your side
In the sweet garden paths at close of day,
Or gathered wild flowers in the shady nooks
Of the old pasture meadow; he who knelt
Each morn and eve, to lisp his childish prayers
Low at your knee, and grasped your gentle hand,
When the clear Sabbath bells rang joyously,
To seek our heavenly Father's hallowed house;
You might forget the hour when he was wont
To come with bounding step and gleesome call,
From his wood rambles to your open arms.
Will it be so, dear mother? Must I die,
And you forget your child?"

          She pressed her lips
On his cold forehead, and her burning tears
Fell fast with his: but when the first keen pang
Was past, she nerved herself to comfort him,
And told him, in her heart were images,
And gentle names of loved and lost, which ne'er
Could fade from her remembrance, and that he
Would ever live among the brightest there,
'Till death should bear her to his arms in heaven.