The Tear

A widowed bride, in the weeds of woe, 
     O'er the tomb of her loved one bended;
A heavy sigh rose sad and slow, 
     As the pearly tear descended ;
Softly down on the marble stone
     It fell, like a tiny gem,
Fit to be borne by a kingly one, 
     In the gold of his diadem.

A moment there in the yellow light
     Of the fading lamp of day,
Like one dim star in the arch of night, 
     That sparkling tear-drop lay;
And O, if a tear can speak, (and who 
     Will say that a tear cannot?)
It told in words that were seeming true,
     The tale of its changing lot.

"Borne on the wing of guideless chance,"
     It said, "have I ever been,
Since earth rushed forth through the blue expanse,
     In the stain of primeval sin :
When the father of man was stooping low
     O'er the form of his murder'd son, 
Alone I burned, in his bitterest woe, 
     In the eye of that anguished one.

O, many a cheek have I trickled down,
     As sorrows of old had birth, 
Of men, the story of whose renown 
     Is forgotten of the earth:
When the mourning prophet tuned his lyre
     To the woes of a captive land
I dimmed his sight, as the sounding wire 
     Replied to his moving hand.

As the Man of Sorrows bowed his head
     Where the shroud-bound Lazarus lay,
Warm from his eye, I fell for the dead, 
     And was lost in the trodden clay:
Down on his garment's holy hem,
     I dropped from his swimming eye,
As he wept o'er the sins of Jerusalem, 
     Ere the storm of her ruin swept by.

And I have rolled with a flood of tears,
     As they fell like falling rain
From the eye of the slave, who hath bowed for years,
     'Neath the weight of the galling chain;
And long have I dimmed his glance of pride,
     As his woes knew nought of change, 
Till his kindling eye hath oft been dried,
     By the fires of red revenge.

In the bright blue eye of a beautiful girl,
     Betrayed by the false, I hung,
As burning thoughts through her brain did whirl, 
     And her heart was with anguish wrung;
I fell on the rose's velvet breast, 
     And quivered there till morn,
The sun looked down on the place of my rest,
     The sparkling gem was gone.

O, chance and change have ever been mine,
     As woe succeeded to woe;
And, mortal! why shouldst thou repine,
     If thy fate be even so!"
The tear-drop ceased, for a sudden blast 
     O'er the rustling grass-blades swept, 
And bore away, as it hurried past, 
     The tear by the mourner wept.