Select poems / by L.H. Sigourney [electronic resource]

THE MOURNING LOVER.

THERE an was a noble form, which oft I marked As the full blossom of bright boyhood's charms Ripened to manly beauty. Nature made His eloquent lip and fervid eye to win Fair woman's trusting heart. Yet not content, Because ambition's fever wrought within, He went to battle, and the crimson sod Told where his life-blood gushed. The maid who kept In her young heart the secret of his love, With all its hoarded store of sympathies And images of hope, think ye she gave, When a few years their fleeting course had run, Her heart again to man? No! no! She twined Its riven tendrils round a surer prop, And reared its blighted blossoms toward that sky Which hath no cloud. She sought devotion's balm, And, with a gentle sadness, turned her soul

From gaiety and song. Pleasurc, for her, Had lost its essence, and the viol's voice Gave but a sorrowing sound. Even her loved plants Breathed too distinctly of the form that bent With hers to watch their budding. 'Mid their flowers, And through the twining of their pensile stems, The semblance of a cold, dead hand would rise, Until she bade them droop and pass away With him she mourned. And so, with widowed heart, She parted out her pittance to the poor, Sat by the bed of sickness, dried the tear Of the forgotten weeper, and enrob'd Herself in mercy, like the Bride of Heaven. Years pass'd away, and still she seemed unchanged. The principle of beauty hath no age:— It looketh forth, even though the eye be dim, The forehead frost-crowned, yea, it looketh forth, Wherever there doth dwell a truthful soul, That in its chastened cheerfulness would shed Sweet charity, on all whom God hath made. Years pass'd away, and 'mid her holy toils The hermit-heart found rest. And oft it seemed, When on her self-denying course she went, As if an angel folded his pure wing Around her breast, inspiring it to hold A saint's endurance.

Of her spirit's griefShe never spake. But as the flush of health Receded from her cheek, her patient eye Gathered new lustre, and the mighty wing Of that supporting angel seemed to gird Closer her languid bosom: while in dreams A tuneful tone, like his who slumbered deep Amid his country's dead, told her of climes Where vows are never sundered. One mild eve, When on the foreheads of the sleeping flowers The loving spring-dews hung their diamond wreaths, She from her casket drew a raven curl, Which once had clustered round her lost one's brow, And press'd it to her lips, and laid it down Upon her Bible, while she knelt to pour The nightly incense of a stricken heart At her Redeemer's feet. Gray morning came, And still her white cheek on that holy page Did calmly rest. Hers was that quiet sleep Which hath no wakening here. Fled from her brow Was every trace of pain, and in its stead Methought the angel, who so long had been Her comforter, had left a farewell-gift— That smile which in the Court of Heaven doth beam.