Poems (Davidson)/To a Young Lady, whose Mother was insane from her Birth

by Lucretia Maria Davidson

TO A YOUNG LADY,

 

WHOSE MOTHER WAS INSANE FROM HER BIRTH.

And thou hast never, never known
 A mother's love, a mother's care!
Hast wept, and sighed, and smiled alone,
 Unblest by e'en a mother's prayer.

O, if sad sorrow's blighting hand
 Hath e'er an arrow, it is this:
To feel that frenzy's burning brand
 Hath wiped away a mother's kiss;

To mark the gulf, the starless wave,
 Which rolls between thee and her love;
To feel that better were a grave,
 A grave beneath, a home above,

Than thus that she should linger on,
 In dreamless, sunless solitude,
Like some bright ruined shrine, where one
 All loveliness and truth hath stood.

And he, her love, her life, her light,
 How burst the storm o'er him!
O, darker than Egyptian night,—
 'Twas one wild troubled dream!

To gaze upon that eye, whose beam
 Was love, and life, and light,
To mark its wild and wandering gleam
 Which dazzles but to blight;

To turn in anguish and despair
 From those wild notes of sadness,
And feel that there was darkness there,
 The midnight mist of madness;

To start beneath the thrilling swell
 Of notes still sweet, though wasted,
To mark the idol loved too well,
 In all its beauty blasted;

O! it were better far to kneel,
 In darkly brooding anguish,
Upon the graves of those we love,
 Than thus to see them languish.