Zinzendorff and Other Poems/The Death of the Motherless
THE DEATH OF THE MOTHERLESS.
"The little boy turned for the last time, his mild, tender glance on those around, and seemed to say, 'Father, she calls! I go. I go. Farewell.'"
"Who calls thee? who? my darling boy,
What voice is in thine ear?"
He answer'd not, but murmur'd on,
In words that none might hear;
And still prolonged the whispering tone,
As if in fond reply
To some dear object of delight
That fixed his dying eye.
And then, with that confiding smile,
First by his mother taught
When freely on her breast he laid
His troubled infant thought,
And meekly as a placid flower
O'er which the dew-drops weep,
He bow'd him on his painful bed,
And slept the unbroken sleep.
But if in yon immortal clime,
Where flows no parting tear,
That root of earthly love may grow,
Which struck so deeply here,
With what a tide of boundless bliss,
A thrill of rapture wild,
An angel mother in the skies,
Will greet her cherub child.