Poems (Griffith)/My Mother

by Mattie Griffith

My Mother.

MY dear, lost mother, it is midnight now,
The sky is dark and starless, and the earth
Seems bound as with a spell of silence. All
Around is still and pulseless as the heart
Whence life has fled for ever. At this hour,
When in my listenings I can hear no sound,
Save the low earnest voice of my own soul
Calling in grief to Heaven, I would invoke
Thy spirit from its blessed home, to hold
Communion with thy child.

              My thought retains
No vestige, mother, of thy form or face—
Death took thee from me long ere memory
Could paint the image of thy loveliness
Upon my infant soul. Yet many friends
Have told me thou wast beautiful beyond
The poet's twilight imaging. They say
That thy fair, blue-veined forehead nestled 'mid
The dark brown clusters of thy tresses, like
The spirit of sweet purity among
The clouds of earthly gloom; that thy black eye,
Calm, proud, and beautiful, beamed with the pure
High visions of thy soul, as midnight waves
Gleam with the flashing star-beams; that thy cheek,
For ever living with the blended hues
Of rose and lily, seemed to glow with more
Than earthly beauty; and that thy red lips
Took added witcheries from the beaming smiles,
And from the tones of gentle melody
That ever hung around them. Ay, I've heard
Full oft of thy entrancing charms, and mused
In silence on them till my soul has sketched
A picture of surpassing loveliness,
And fondly named it thee; and oh I feel
I could for ever kneel and worship it
In wild excess of love. I do not know
That e'er I heard thy voice, yet in, my brain
There is a soft mysterious melody
Far sweeter than the sweetest sound of earth
And I have dreamed it is thy gentle tone
Breathed in mine ear in early infancy
And lingering faintly still.

              My mother dear,
When the high mandate came that bade thee take
Farewell of this dark earth, and seek thy home
Of immortality beyond the stars,
Oh did no feeling of regret arise
Within thy pure and parting soul? Hadst thou
No torturing fears, sweet mother, for thy child
Whom thou wast leaving in her helpless years
Amid a world of sin? Hadst thou no dread
Lest her young feet should wander from the paths
Of truth, when she should hear no voice of thine
To warn her of her perils? Mother, now
That child is weary of life's pilgrimage,
Her spirit is oppressed on this dark shore
Of time; the burden of existence falls
Upon a heart too weak and faint to bear
Its cares and agonies; and oh, she longs
To come to thee, and weep away her griefs
Upon thy sainted bosom. Be the first,
Oh mother, be the first to catch the sound
Of her young footsteps through the shadowy vale
Of death, and clasp her in thy blessed arms
In thy own Eden.

         Mother, from thy home
Above, look down in pity on thy child,
Thy lonely orphan wanderer. Shelter her
With thy angelic wing in her sad stay
Upon the earth; breathe strength from thy high soul
Into her soul; oh speak to her in dreams,
When sleep has rent her earthly fetters; tell
Her spirit of the bright, the better land;
And keep her heart in all its wanderings pure
From the dark stains of this mortality.

Louisville, Oct 25.