Threnody

Never more shall mother-breast 
Be the pillow of thy rest; 
Never more thy laughing eye 
To the mother's glance reply; 
Nor the lisping, loving word 
From thy baby-lips be heard; 
Nor thy thousand little wiles 
Kindle all her face with smiles.

From the shelter of her breast 
Thou hast gone to deeper rest; 
Sunny eye and laughing lips 
Darkly sleep in death's eclipse; 
And the grave's cold shadow now 
Veils the whiteness of thy brow, 
While thy mother, night and morn, 
Sorrows for her latest born.

Yet I ween 'tis well with thee, 
Early from thy thralldom free, 
Ere thine eye had caught a glance 
Of our sad inheritance;
Or thine ear had learned to know
All the dialect of woe; 
Or the light thy soul within 
Faded in the murk of sin.

While the music of the spheres 
Trembled on thine infant ears, 
And the angels made thy dreams 
Luminous with Eden-gleams, 
Death — himself an angel — came, 
Tenderly he touched thy frame, 
And thy spirit from its clay 
Leapt exultingly away !

Now, amid the ransomed throng, 
Overflow thy lips with song; 
Never did so sweet a note 
Cleave the air from mortal throat; 
Never heard the ear of Time 
Strains so holy and sublime, 
All whose tender minors tell 
Of a bliss ineffable.

Is it losing, to have given 
One to swell the songs of heaven, 
Ere his happy spirit knew 
Aught to stain its virgin hue?
Henceforth to our spirit-sight 
Shall that world be doubly bright, 
And intenser longings burn 
In our hearts, till we, in turn, 
Chastened, sanctified, and blest, 
Pass serenely to its rest!