Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/97

 lShiO-40.] ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY 81 Ay, woman, she — she passed me by, With cold, averted, careless eye; Nor deigned to ask, nor seemed to care If death and I were struggling there ! Ah ! then I've thought, and /eft it, too, — My mother is not such as you ! How would she sit beside my bed, And pillow up my aching head, And then, in accents true as mild, " Would I were suff'ring for thee, child ! " And try to soothe my griefs avv'ay, And look e'en more than she could say; And pi-ess her cheek to mine, nor fear, Though plague or fever wantoned there ; And watch through weary nights and lone. Nor deem fatigue could be her own. And if, perchance, I slept, the last I saw, her eyes were on me cast ; And w4ien I woke, 'twould be to meet The same kind, anxious glance, so sweet. And so endearing, that it seemed As from a seraph's eye it beamed. My mother ! I am far away From home, and love, and thee ; And stranger hands may heap the clay That soon may cover me ; Yet we shall meet — perhaps not here, But in yon shining azure sphere ; And if there's aught assures me more, Ere yet my spirit fly, That heaven has mercy still in store, For such a wretch as I, 'Tis that a heart so good as thine, Must bleed — must burst, along with mine. And life is short, at best, and time Must soon prepare the tomb ; And there is sure a happier clime, Beyond this world of gloom. And should it be my happy lot, After a life of care and pain. In sadness spent, or spent in vain — To go where sighs and sin is not, 'Twill make the half my heaven to be. My mother, evermore with thee ! THE WANDERER.* The sun was set, and that dim twilight hour. Which shrouds in gloom whate'er it looks upon, Was o'er the world ; stern desolation lay In her own ruins ; every mark was gone. Save one tall, beetling monumental stone. Amid a sandy waste, it reared its head. All scathed and blackened by the light- ning's shock, That many a scar and many a seam had made, E'en to its base ; and there, with thun- dering stroke, Erie's wild waves in ceaseless clamors broke. And on its rifted top the wanderer stood, And bared his head beneath the cold night air. And wistfully he gazed upon the flood. It were a boon to him (so thought he there) Beneath that tide to rest from every care. And might it be, and not his own rash hand Have done the deed (for yet he dared not brave, All reckless as he was, the high command, Do thou thyself no harm), adown the wave. And in the tall lake-grass that night, had been his grave. Oh ! you may tell of that philosophy. Which steels the heart 'gainst every bitter woe : 'Tis not in nature, and it cannot be ; You caimot rend young hearts, and not a throe Of agony, tell how they feel the blow. 6
 * Written ou the shore of Lake Erie.