Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/Death of a Father
DEATH OF A FATHER.
Say, shall we render thanks for him
Whose sorrows all are o'er?
Whose footsteps leave the storm-wash'd sands
Of this terrestrial shore?
Who to the garner of the bless'd,
In yon immortal land,
Was gather'd, as the ripen'd sheaf
Doth meet the reaper's hand?
Yet precious was that reverend man,
And to his arm I clung,
Till more than fourscore weary years
Their shadows o'er him flung;
Not lonely or unloved he dwelt,
Though earliest friends had fled,
For sweet affections sprang anew
When older roots were dead.
There lies the Holy Book of God,
His oracle and guide,
Where last my children read to him,
The page still open wide;
Yet where he bent to hear their voice
Is but a vacant chair,
A lone staff standing by its side:
They call—he is not there!
He is not there, my little ones!
So suddenly he fled,
They cannot bring it to their minds
That he is of the dead.
Yet oft the hymns he sang with them,
So tunefully and slow,
Shall wake sad echo in their souls,
Like parting tones of wo.
There was his favourite noonday seat,
Beneath yon trellised vine,
To mark the embryo clusters swell,
The aspiring tendrils twine;
Or, lightly leaning on his staff,
With vigorous step he went
A little way among the flowers,
With morning dews besprent.
How dear was every rising sun
That cloudless met his eye,
And, nightly, how his graceful prayer
Rose upward, warm and high;
For freely to his God he gave
The blossom of his prime,
So He forgot him not amid
The water-floods of time.
The cherish'd memories of the past,
How strong they burn'd, and clear,
Prompting the tale the listening boy
Still held his breath to hear,
How a young cradled nation woke
To grasp the glittering brand,
And strangely raise the half-knit arm
To brave the mother-land.
Those stormy days! those stormy days!
When, with a fearful cry,
The blood-stain'd earth at Lexington
Invoked the avenging sky,
When in the scarce-drawn furrow
The farmer's plough was stay'd,
And for the gardener's pruning-hook
Sprang forth the warrior's blade.
The glorious deeds of Washington,
The chiefs of other days!
Another lip is silent now
That used to speak their praise;
Another link is stricken
From the living chain that bound
The legends of an ancient race
Our thrilling hearts around.
We gaze on where the patriarchs stood
In ripen'd virtue strong,
How shall we dare to fill the place
That they have fill'd so long?
How on the bosoms of our race
Enforce the truths they breathed,
Or wear that mantle of the skies
They to our souls bequeathed?
But ah! to think that breast is cold,
Whose sympathetic tone
Responded to my joys and woes
As though they were its own,
To know the prayer that was my guard,
My pilot o'er the sea,
Must never, in this vale of tears,
Be lifted more for me.
There was no frost upon his hair,
No anguish on his brow,
Those bright brown locks, my pride and care,
Methinks I see them now;
Methinks that beaming smile I see,
In love and patience sweet,
O father! must that smile no more
My quicken'd footsteps greet?
Yet wrong we not that messenger
Who gather'd back the breath,
Calling him ruthless spoiler, stern,
And fell destroyer, death?
His touch was like the angel's
Who comes at close of day
To lull the willing flowers asleep
Until the morning ray.
And so they laid the righteous man
'Neath the green turf to rest,
And blessed were the words of prayer
That fell upon his breast;
For sure it were an ingrate's deed
To murmur or repine,
That such a life, my sire, was closed
By such as death as thine.
But thou, our God, who know'st our frame,
Whose shield is o'er us spread,
When every idol of our love
Is desolate and dead,
Father and mother may forsake,
Yet be Thou still our trust,
And let thy chastenings cleanse the soul
From vanity and dust.