Poems (Eckley)/Waves of Thought

by Sophia May Eckley

WAVES OF THOUGHT.

S wave on wave successive rolling,
 Dashing headlong on the shore,
So thought.comes chasing busy thought,
 Turning memory's pages o'er.

Laughing hours, and by-gone pleasures,
 Misty mantle round me fold,
As if to shut out sorrow's face,
 Which haunts me ever pale and cold.

Memory brings each mirror'd picture,
 While I musing sad and lone,
Recall one dear face now averted,
 One flower from my pathway gone.

Through the chasing tears that blind me,
 Mingling with the parting wave
That wears upon its crested forehead
 The dripping weed it loves to lave,

Hope's pale blossom lifts her fragrance,
 Breathing from the changeful past;
Perchance the waves of time may bear it
 To blossom at my feet at last.

Like a necklace, lost, forgotten—
 All the shining beads unstrung,
I, the well-worn thread would gather,
 Gently string my joys along.

Childhood, once so gay, so joyous,
 Full of life, from sorrow free,
Like a sweet and spring-like morning,
 Poured forth freshest melody.

Now grave pictures shaded deeper,
 Swift before my fancy spring;
And I hear an unseen footstep,
 And I feel an angel's wing.

Then I see a meek pale vision
 Of a loved one from us borne,
Whose mild face is ever near me,
 And whose loss I ever mourn.

Then another sunlit picture
 From that gallery long and dim,
Floats before my weary spirit,
 Through the darkness like a gleam.

'Tis a chamber softly shaded
 From the glaring light of day,
Where a weak and thankful Mother,
 With her new-born infant lay.

Little then did that fond mother,
 While she watched her tender nest,
Dream that ere another summer,
 One little bird would be at rest.

Thus on life's troubled sea are mingled
 Scatter'd buds of joy and grief,
E'en as flowers from mystic depths, float
 Upward from the coral reef.

Rye Beach, 1851.