Zinzendorff and Other Poems/Funeral at Sea
FUNERAL AT SEA.
"Yesterday, a child died in the ship. To-day, I read the English burial-service,—and committed its body to the mighty deep, until the day when the grave and sea shall give up their dead. The mother lay in tears in her berth,—the father could scarce repress his anguish, and I felt the agony of their grief, as I pronounced the solemn words, that accompanied the body to the pathless deep."
Journal of the late Rev. Henry B. McLellan.
The deep sea took the dead. It was a babe
Like sculptur'd marble, pure and beautiful
That lonely to its yawning gulphs went down.
—Poor cradled nursling,—no fond arm was there
To wrap thee in its folds; no lullaby
Came from the green sea-monster, as he laid
His shapeless head thy polished brow beside,
One moment wondering at the beauteous spoil
On which he fed. Old Ocean heeded not
This added unit to his myriad dead.
But in the bosom of the tossing ship
Rose up a burst of anguish, wild and loud,
From the vex'd fountain of a mother's love.
—The lost! The lost! Oft shall her startled dream,
Catch the drear echo of the sullen plunge
That whelm'd the uncoffin'd body,—oft her eye
Strain wide through midnight's long unslumbering watch,
Remembering how his soft sweet breathing seem'd
Like measur'd music in a lilly's cup,
And how his tiny shout of rapture swelled,
When closer to her bosom's core, she drew
His eager lip.
Who thus, with folded arms,
And head declin'd, doth seem to count the waves,
And yet to heed them not? The sorrowing sire,
Doth mark the last, faint ripple, where his child
Sank down into the waters. Busy thought
Turns to his far home, and those little ones,
Whom sporting 'mid their favorite lawn he left,
And troubled fancy shows the weeping there,
When he shall seat them once more on his knee,
And tell them how the baby that they lov'd,
Hid its pale cheek within its mother's breast,
And pin'd away and died,—yet found no grave
Beneath the church-yard turf, where they might plant
The lowly mound with flowers.
What lifts the heart
Up from its bitter sadness? Hark! His voice
That o'er the thundering wave, doth pour sublime
Such words, as arch the darkest storm of life
With faith's perennial bow.
Thou, who dost speak
Of His eternal majesty, who bids
Both earth and sea to render up their dead,
Know'st thou how soon thy tomb shall drink the tears
Of mourning kindred? Thou, who thus dost stand
Serene in youthful beauty, to yield back
What God hath claim'd,—know'st thou how full the tide
Of sympathy, that now thy bosom thrills
For strangers, in thine own paternal halls
Shall flow for thee?
And if thou could'st, the flush
Would not have faded on thy glowing cheek,
For thou had'st made the countenance of death
Familiar as a friend, through Him who pluck'd
The terror from his frown, and from his sting
The venom. At thine early tomb we bend,
Taking that deep monition to our souls,
Which through embowering verdure seems to sigh
On every breeze—how frail is earth's best hope,
And how immortal that, which roots in Heaven.