This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

147

And mingling there, there seems a tinge
Of gentle sadness too;—
Not sorrow, but some thought that comes
To soften and subdue,

Thy pensive eyes seem watching, where
Thy happy children play;
While blending with thy thoughts of them,
Come hours long past away.

The loved, the lost, the holy dead
Are swiftly passing by,
And blending with the fairy forms
That glad thy loving eye.

I like to look upon that face
It ever seems to me
An image of what woman's heart
And woman's life should be:—

A loving spirit, lowly mind,
A gentle heart and fair,
So filled with home, the world can find
No room to enter there.

And such tradition says wert thou:
To all around thee dear;
Thy pious life and bounteous hand
Are still remembered here.

But soon, alas! thy race was run;
Scarce ten short years had fled
Of thy calm wedded life, when thou
Wert numbered with the dead.