Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/152

146 And must she for the fatal loss bemoan,

Or faint to hear his last departing groan.

Methinks I see him speechless gaze awhile,

And on her drop his last paternal smile;

With gushing tears closing his humid eyes,

The last pulse beats, and in her arms he dies.

With pallid cheeks she lingers round his bier,

And heaves a farewell sigh with every tear;

With sorrow she consigns him to the dust,

And silent owns the fatal sentence just.

Still her sequestered mother seems to weep,

And spurns the balm which constitutes her sleep;

Her plaintive murmurs float upon the gale,

And almost make the stubborn rocks bewail.

O what is like the awful breach of death,

Whose fatal stroke invades the creature's breath!

It bids the voice of desolation roll,

And strikes the deepest awe within the bravest soul.

When Evening bids the Sun to rest retire,

Unwearied Ether sets her lamps on fire;

Lit by one torch, each is supplied in turn.

Till all the candles in the concave burn.