LAURA BRIDGMAN,
THE DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND GIRL, AT THE INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND IN BOSTON.
Where is the light that to the eye
Heaven's holy message gave,
Tinging the retina with rays
From sky, and earth, and wave?
Where is the sound that to the soul
Mysterious passage wrought,
And strangely made the moving lip
A harp-string for the thought?
All fled! all lost! Not even the rose
An odour leaves behind,
That, like a broken reed, might trace
The tablet of the mind.
That mind! It struggles with its fate,
The anxious conflict, see!
As if through Bastile-bars it sought
Communion with the free.
Yet still its prison-robe it wears
Without a prisoner's pain,
For happy childhood's beaming sun
Glows in each bounding vein.
