Poems Sigourney 1834/On the Death of a Mother, soon after her Infant Son
ON THE DEATH OF A MOTHER, SOON AFTER HER INFANT SON.
There's a cry from that cradle-bed,
The voice of an infant's woe;
Hark! hark! to the mother's rushing tread,
In her bosom's fold she hath hid his head,
And his wild tears cease to flow.
Yet he must weep again,
And when his eye shall know
The burning brine of manhood's pain
Or youth's unuttered woe,
That mother fair
With her full tide of sympathies, alas! may not be there.
On earth, the tree of weeping grows
Fast by man's side where'er he goes,
And o'er his brightest joys, its bitterest essence flows.
But she, from her sweet home
So lately fled away,
She for whose buried smile the fond heart mourns this day,
Hath tasted rapture undefiled;
She hath gone to her child—she hath gone to her child,
Where sorrow may never come.
He was the precious one,
The prayed for, the adored—
And from each rising sun
Till Night her balmy cup of silence poured,
For him the paths of knowledge she explored,
Feeding his eager mind with seraph's bread,
Till intellectual light o'er his fair features spread.
But ah ! he bowed to die,
Strange darkness sealed his eye,
And there he lay, like marble in his shroud;
He, at whose infant might even trembling Love was proud.
Yet she who bore him shrank not 'neath the rod,
Laying her chastened soul low at the feet of God.
Now is her victory won,
Her strife of battle o'er,
She hath found her son—she hath found her son,
Where Death is a king no more.
She hath gone to see how bright doth shine
In eternity's sphere that lamp divine,
Which here 'mid the storms of earth severe
She tenderly nursed with a mother's fear:
Forgotten are all her toils,
The pang hath left no trace,
When Memory hoardeth in Heaven its spoils
These have no place.
Mothers! whose speechless care,
Whose unrequited sigh,
Weary arm and sleepless eye
Change the fresh rose-bud on the cheek to paleness and despair,
Look up! Look up to the bountiful sky,
Earth may not pay your debt, your record is on high.
Ye have gazed in doubt on the plants that drew
From your gentle hand their nightly dew—
Ye have given with trembling your morning kiss,
Ye have sown in pain—ye shall reap in bliss;
The mother's tear, the mother's prayer,
In faith for her offspring given,
Shall be counted as pearls at the judgment-bar,
And win the gold of heaven.