Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/87

Rh  There spake a wishful tenderness,—a doubt Whether to grieve or sleep, which Innocence Alone can wear.—With ruthless haste he bound The silken fringes of their curtaining lids Forever.—There had been a murmuring sound With which the babe would claim its mother's ear, Charming her even to tears.—The spoiler set His seal of silence.—But there beam'd a smile So fix'd and holy from that marble brow,— Death gazed and left it there;—he dared not steal The signet-ring of Heaven.

 

Slow-moving Orb! majestic and remote, Which Galileo's glass had fail'd to note, Thou, who with swift-wing'd Mercury art given To mark the grand antithesis of heaven, Keep'st thou like armed sentinel the ground Where rival systems press our solar round? Read'st thou from them with ever sleepless eyes What thy own zodiac's fainter page denies? Or call'st thy six torch-bearers forth, to light The guarded frontier through the watchful night, Like border chieftain, whose strong castle towers, The dreaded boundary of contiguous powers? Does the red Comet, in his hour of wrath, Scorn thy dull movements and concentric path? Or bear, replenish'd from some richer sphere, Fuel and flame, thy shivering sons to cheer? 