Poems (Odom)/Colonel Harper P. Hunt
TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR AND HONORED FATHER,COL. HARPER P. HUNT,OF VICKSBURG, MISS., WHO DIED JANUARY 28, 1876, AGED 62 YEARS 11 MONTHS AND 27 DAYS.
Alone in the bitterest sorrow, I stand in my twilighted room,Girding my strength for the future, Striving to face all its gloom.O God! can it be that my father— My very best friend after God—Lies pulseless and cold in the valley, Low under the emerald sod;With the earth in its horrible freshness All heavily heaped on his chest,And the hands that so tenderly blessed me Folded and still on his breast!
Never more to uphold nor caress me, To be all my strength and my stay,When Fate lays her heavy hands on me, And griefs thicken over my way. God help me!—my heart is so weary, So broken with sorrow and pain,So torn with this thought that I never Can lay down the burden again.Life seems bleakly barren before me, All cheerless, and chilly, and gray;Its lights one by one have been darkened, Its roses have gone to decay.
To-day I go back to my childhood, And lifting the crape from the doorI stand in the sanctified chamber To gaze on its relics once more.And brightest and fairest and purest Of all the treasures I see,Are the worship I gave to my father, And the love that he lavished on me.His heart bent to mine as the heavens Bend down to the ocean's blue rim;While mine was the pearl-tinted chalice That offered oblation to him.
The king of my passionate childhood, He ruled every thought of my life;Ever tenderly guiding me onward, Soothing all sorrow and strife. And when the sweet valley of girlhood Unfolded its bloom to my view,His love gave to every flower A richer and ruddier hue.At last when in womanhood's sorrows I bent under storm after storm,I found in his bosom a shelter, Strong like his own heart and as warm.
I press my hands over my temples, And staggering, sink to the floor,With my very soul steeped in the yearning To look on my father once more.Only to see him and kiss him, To lay my head down on his breast,Where always before in my trouble I found so much comfort and rest.Alas! all my impotent weeping, My heart-broken yearnings are vain;On earth I shall never, oh! never, Look on my dear father again.
He has lifted the veil from the future, Has laid down the burden of years; He stands in the city all golden, I tread in the wine-press of tears.I know that my two little brothers Are close to his bosom to-night,Their brows all aglow with the halo Of heaven's own radiant light.There, too, are my three little children, All safe on that bright-tinted shore,Where never a sorrow can reach them, Nor sickness, nor pain, evermore.
And Maggie—"my fair little daughter," Who left me three summers ago—Ran down to the brink of the river To meet her dear grandpa, I know;I fancy I see him enfolding Her close in his arms as of old,His silver locks floating and mingling With her sunny ringlets of gold;Her dimpled arms clinging about him In all of their soft, baby grace;Her rosy cheek lovingly resting Its innocent bloom on his face.
We all have our treasures in heaven, Our flowers immortally fair; 'T is only the dead leaves we bury, The fragrance is glorified there.But we weep for our own desolation Wild passionate rivers of tears;With hearts that are human and bleeding We walk through the grief-laden years,—On, on till the great shining portal Of heavenly glory is passed,When safe with our crucified Saviour We all shall be gathered at last.