Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/198

198 Perchance, was nearer to her son, than you Who smooth'd the pillow for his fever'd head, Calling yourselves the living, tho' ye dwell In death's own realm, beneath his lifted dart. Ye gave his mother to the earth-worm's bed, But can ye say that her seraphic smile Beam'd not upon him, as he struggling lay In the last mortal agony? Her lip Hail'd her frail first-born to this world of tears With rapture's speechless kiss. Know ye, how warm, How eloquent its welcome to that clime Which hath no death-pang? If celestial bands Feel for the unknown habitants of clay, A hallow'd train of guardian sympathies, And fold their wings around them as they run Time's slippery course, with what a flood of joy, With what refin'd, exulting intercourse, At Heaven's bright threshhold, when all ills are past, A mother greets her child! 'Tis o'er! 'Tis o'er! All earthly strife in that soft sigh doth end. Wrap the white grave-robe o'er that stainless form, And lay it by her side, whose breast so long Was the fond pillow for his golden hair. Write o'er his narrow tomb, "'tis well! 'tis well!" Then turn away and weep:—for weep we must, When our most beautiful and treasur'd things Fleet from this shaded earth. How can we see Our rifled bowers of rest in ruin laid