Zinzendorff and Other Poems/On Reading the Memoirs of Mrs. Judson
ON READING THE MEMOIRS OF MRS. JUDSON.
I saw her on the strand. Beside her smil'd
Her land of birth, and her beloved home,
With all their pageantry of tint and shade,
Streamlet and vale.
There stood her childhood's friends,
Sweet sisters, who her inmost thoughts had shar'd,
And saint-like parents, whose example rais'd
Those thoughts to Heaven. It was a strong array,
And the fond heart clung to its rooted loves.
But Christ had given a panoply, which Earth
Might never take away. And so she turn'd
To boisterous Ocean, and with cheerful step,
Though moisten'd eye, forsook the cherish'd clime
Whose halcyon bowers had rear'd her joyous youth.
—I look'd again. It was a foreign shore.
The tropic sun had laid his burning brow
On twilight's lap. A gorgeous palace caught
His last red ray. Hoarsely the idol-song
To Boodh, mingled with the breeze that curl'd
Broad Irrawaddy's tide. Why do ye point
To yon low prison? Who is he that gropes
Amid its darkness, with those fetter'd limbs?
Mad Pagans! do ye thus requite the man
Who toils for your salvation?
See that form
Bending in tenderest sympathy to soothe
The victim's sorrow. Tardy months pass by,
And find her still intrepid at the post
Of danger and of disappointed hope.
Stern sickness smote her, yet with tireless zeal,
She bore the hoarded morsel to her love,
Dar'd the rude arrogance of savage power,
To plead for him, and bade his dungeon glow,
With her fair brow, as erst the angel's smile
Arous'd imprison'd Peter, when his hands
From fetters loos'd, were lifted high in praise.
—There was another scene, drawn by his hand
Whose icy pencil blotteth out the grace
And loveliness of man. The keenest shaft
Of anguish quivers in that martyr's breast,
Who is about to wash her garments white
In her Redeemer's blood, and glorious rise
From earthly sorrows to a clime of rest.
—Dark Burman faces are around her bed,
And one pale babe is there, for whom she checks
The death-groan, clasping it in close embrace,
Even till the heart-strings break.
Behold, he comes!
The wearied man of God from distant toil.
His home, while yet a misty speck it seems,
His straining eye detects, but marks no form
Of his beloved, hasting down the vale,
As wont, to meet him.
Say, what heathen lip
In its strange accent told him, that on earth
Nought now remain'd to heal his wounded heart,
Save that lone famish'd infant? Days of care
Were meted to him, and long nights of grief
Weigh'd out, and then that little, wailing one
Went to her mother's bosom, and slept sweet
'Neath the cool branches of the Hopia-tree.
'Twas bitterness to think that bird-like voice,
Which sang sweet hymns to please a father's ear,
Must breath no more.
This is to be alone!
Alone in this wide world.
Yet not without
A comforter. For the true heart that trusts
Its all to Heaven, and sees its treasur'd things
Unfold their hidden wing, and thither soar,
Doth find itself drawn upward in their flight,
And poising higher o'er this vale of tears,
And gathering bright revealings of its home,
Doth from its sorrows weave a robe of praise.