Page:The Domestic Affections, and Other Poems.pdf/173



And friends, divided here, shall meet at last, Unite their kindred souls—and smile on all the past!

Yes! we may hope, that Nature's deathless ties, Renew'd, refin'd—shall triumph in the skies! Heart-soothing thought! whose lov'd, consoling pow'r, With seraph-dreams can gild reflection's hour; Oh! still be near! and bright'ning thro' the gloom, Beam and ascend! the day-star of the tomb! And smile for those, in sternest ordeals prov'd, Those lonely hearts, bereft of all they lov'd!

Lo! by the couch, where pain and chill disease, In ev'ry vein the ebbing life-blood freeze; Where youth is taught, by stealing, slow decay, Life's closing lesson—in its dawning day; Where beauty's rose is with'ring ere its prime, Unchang'd by sorrow—and unsoil'd by time; There, bending still, with fix'd and sleepless eye, There, from her child, the mother learns—to die!