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How much I might have soothed her, had I shared
Her patient vigils! Many a weary night
Had she bent lonely o'er my father's couch,
And now it was too late for me to aid.
I wept in agony; I called the saints
To witness to the depth of my despair;
I vowed wild penances; my grief,
Still selfish, half forgot my mother's woe.
Yet now not all in vain for me her meek
And beautiful example; I was touched
By the calm sweetness of humility,
Though sorrowing, resigned: yet in my heart
There was a struggle; pride forbade to change,
And bade me straight resume the veil and vow;
But still, the image of my mother, left
To solitude and solitary tears,
Softened me with reproachful tenderness;
I longed to throw me at her feet, and say,
Mother, dear mother, take your child again!
One evening—'twas the first we bent our way
To that ancestral chapel where the dead
Of all our race reposed,—how many tears
Had fallen upon those cold and quiet stones!
The tablets to the memories of the tomb
Were mostly worn with time; but one was there
Fresh—'twas the bitter work of yesterday!
There knelt my mother, but in prayer, not tears;
And pale, as with some sad yet solemn thought,
