Poems (Odom)/In Memoriam (The broken threads of a woman's life)
For works with similar titles, see In Memoriam.
IN MEMORIAM.
[Died, at Cold Springs plantation, Clairborne County, Mississippi, on Saturday, March 27, 1880, at 1 o'clock P.M., Laura M. McCaleb, wife of Henry Guillotte, and only sister of E. Howard McCaleb, of this city. Aged thirty-six years.—New Orleans Times.]
The broken threads of a woman's life Have quivered and sadly dropped apart;The waxen hands in a listless clasp Are folded over the silent heart;The lustre of the beautiful eye Is shrouded under the snowy lid;The shimmering gold of the curling lash Has caught a gleam of the soul it hid,
As if the spirit had turned again, And lingered just for an instant there,To leave a ray of its perfect light On the quiet lash and curling hair.Beautiful in the sleep of death, As some just broken lily flower, Was it the strength of human love That robbed the grave of its ghastly power?
Just a whisper of heavenly love Across the closed and lifeless lips;A shadowy touch of an angel's hand, Cold as ice to the finger-tips;A little step in the outer dark, A pulse of human and anxious fear;A clinging close to the Guiding Hand, Tenderly strong and always near.
But oh! the breaking of loving ties; The sad, sad years that are yet to come,When children listen and call in vain For a mother's voice forever dumb;The long days when the summer sun Shall shine athwart her place of rest,The autumns when the winds shall shake The leaves in showers on her breast;
The winters when the falling snow Shall whiten o'er the lowly mound,And like some folded winding-sheet, Drift slowly on the frozen ground. As seasons sadly come and go Throughout the slowly creeping years,God helps those aged hearts that mourn Above her dust with falling tears.
Back to her childhood's sunny home, Where lulling breezes softly play,She came and laid her weary head, Before her spirit passed away.The stars that smiled upon her birth Above her grave their watches keep,'Mid crumbling tombs where of her race Six generations calmly sleep.
The music-throated birds that swing Upon the swaying branches there,Will fling their songs of requiem Afloat upon the summer air;The flowers that she so loved in life Will bloom upon the fragrant sod;And softly whispering winds shall tell Of rest at last, and peace with God.