Literary Cadet And Rhode Island Statesman

On The Death Of A Child

I saw them in a cottage lot, while all look'd on the corse of infancy—their grief was in their sighs.
She was mother's only child, father's diadem.
All wealth to them were valueless, except this precious gem;
The father's grief found vent in sighs, and in parental tear,
But what can calm a mother's heart, or smooth her future years!
Her love was lock'd up in the child, 'twas cold and motionless.
No tear was there to quell her grief, her feelings to suppress.
She spoke nor look'd not on the corse, her eye was mild and meek,
The agony which burn'd within, had ting'd her pallid cheek;
She sigh'd, 'twas the sigh of woe, come from a mother's heart.
And told that death had rent the bond, and sunder'd it apart;
Her pledge of hope, her precious gem, the link of all her love
Was hush'd ere its noontide hour, to bloom in Heaven above;
For cold frost had nipp'd the bud, and clos'd its youthful breath,
Yet nought could chill the mother's love, nor e'en the arm of death.
None but a mother knows the pangs, which agonize the soul,
None can describe her wretched grief—Go, her tide of woe control.
She saw the little cherub borne, to its last home, the tomb,
While grief has wove around her heart, its livery of gloom;
She feels a pang that mocks the pow'r of resignation's rest,
For tears or anguish ne'er can wash, its image from her breast.
The tide of sorrow still flows on, and swells its troubled wave,
Until the spirit sinks in grief, a victim to the grave.

B.

Harren, Oct 17.