Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/31

30 Ah, who can mark with cold and tearless eyes The grief of stricken man, when his sole idol dies!

And she had fled, in whom his heart's deep joy Was garner'd up; fled, like the rushing flame, And left no farewell for her fair, young boy. Lo! in his nurse's arms, he careless came, A noble creature, with his full dark eye, And clustering curls, in nature's majesty; But, with a sudden shriek, his mother's name Burst from his lips, and, gazing on the clay, He stretch'd his eager arms where the cold sleeper lay.

"Oh mother! mother!" Did that bitter cry Send a shrill echo through the realm of death? Look, to the trembling fringes of the eye. List, the sharp shudder of returning breath, The spirit's sob! They lay him on her breast; One long, long kiss on his bright brow she press'd; Even from heaven's gate of bliss she lingereth, To breathe one blessing o'er his precious head, And then, her arm unclasps, and she is of the dead.

The dead! the sainted dead! why should we weep At the last change their settled features take? At the calm impress of that holy sleep Which care and sorrow never more shall break? Believe we not His word who rends the tomb, And bids the slumberers from that transient gloom In their Redeemer's glorious image wake?