The Millennium, and Other Poems: To Which is Annexed, a Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of MatterPratt, Parley P. (Parley Parker)
Philosophy
The Millennium, and Other Poems: To Which is Annexed, a Treatise on the Regeneration and Eternal Duration of Matter
Pratt, Parley P. (Parley Parker)
Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines; Latter Day Saints -- Poetry
When the Union is severed, and liberty's blessings
Withheld from the sons of Columbia, once free;
When bloodshed and war, and famine d'stress them,
Remember the warning! and think upon me.
When this mighty city shall crumble to ruin,
And sink as a millstone, the merchants undoing;
The ransom'd, the highway of Zion pursuing,--
Sing this lamentation, and think upon me.
LAMENTATION BY P. P. PRATT.
IN MEMORY OP HIS DEPARTED WIFE, WHO DIED, MARCH 25, 1837.
The joys of home I once have tasted,
All its pleasures called my own;
Friendship's purest pleasures graced it,
But they're gone,--I'm left alone,
Now no more that smile of gladness
Welcomes me at my return;
But a lonely, solemn sadness:
Oh she's gone,--I'm left alone!
Oft when clouds of care and trouble,
Like a tempest o'er me roll'd,
A look, a word, an act of kindness,
Served to calm my troubled soul.
When by pain and sickness wasted,
Oft she lingered near my bed;
Fed me, nursed me as an angel,
Washed my feet or bathed my head.
When to western wilds I wandered,
Rear'd in solitude my cot;
Clear'd away the gloomy forest,--
She with flowers adorned the spot.
When by ruthless mobs was driven,
Wounded, bleeding, from my home,
Wandering in a land of strangers,
Pilgrim like she with me roamed.
When in distant climes I wander'd,
To bear glad tidings to mankind;
She shared my toils and travels gladly,
Or would consent to stay behind.
Returning from a distant journey,
She always met me with a smile;
Wash'd my feet and changed my raiment,
And bade me rest from all my toil.
But now alone I'm left to wander,
From land to land, from sea to sea;
And none except my only offspring
Will scarce inquire what comes of me.
And e'n to him I'll seem a stranger,
While he is reared by other hands;
He'll hardly feel I am his father,
When I return from distant lands.
What is it then for which I linger,
Still in this dark and dreary waste?
Where nothing centers my affection,
Where others' joys I cannot taste.
If I must still consent to tarry,
'Twill be to bear another's grief:
To save mankind from sin and sorrow,
And bring the broken heart relief.
To comfort those who mourn in Zion,
And bid ten thousand others come;
Where the widow, orphan, virgin,
And the poor may find a home.
FUNERAL HYMN.
ON THE DEATH OF MRS. PRATT.
Creation speaks with awful voice--
Hark! 'tis a universal groan
Re-echoes through the vast extent
Of worlds unnumbered called to mourn.
For sickness, sorrow, pain and death,
With awful tyranny have reigned;
While all eternity has shed
Her tears of sorrow o'er the slain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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