The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 5, January, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 5, January, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
With sad solicitude 'twas mine to watch,
In silent woe, my angel's midnight couch,
Guide her uncertain steps the live-long day,
Or pine in trembling terrors when away--
To see the impending stroke I could not ward,
And mourn the sufferer that no love could guard;
But this blest certainty my heart repays,
And bids it throb with gratitude and praise.
Yet pardon, Lord! my bosom's sorrowing swell,
When on past scenes I yet too fondly dwell;
And you who ne'er have felt the cruel pang,
Who still can o'er your cherish'd darlings hang;
Who have not learn'd how hard it is to part,
And bear about a sad bereaved heart--
Or not possessing, ne'er conceive the charm
With which maternal love the heart can warm--
With kind indulgence hear pale sorrow's moan,
Nor lightly judge the woes you have not known.
Should the Supreme a cherub fair bestow,
More sweet than all his hand e'er form'd below;
While all that helpless infancy endears
Wakes into life a mother's hopes and fears--
And if thy heart shall love as mine has loved,
And prove the bitter pangs that mine has proved,
Then may'st thou judge--for thou wilt truly know
That keenest pang, a tender mother's woe;
Then wilt thou, pitying, hear pale sorrow's moan,
And kindly mingle with her sighs, thy own.
Thus, shadowy eve, allured and soothed by thee,
A wand'ring visionary I shall be--
And when o'er earth thy dewy breezes sweep,
Seek thy sequestered shades to muse and weep;
Not bitter tears--or without comfort shed,
A tribute to the loved, the honor'd dead.
Hail gentle spirits! while thus memory true
In fancy's wanderings oft communes with you,
This world recedes--the silent grave appears
A blest asylum from all earthly cares!
And faith, the hope inspiring, sooths my breast,
That _there_ the sad and weary shall have rest.
We shall for the present, conclude with the following "_Lines written
on hearing a lady use the expression of smiling autumn_."
SMILING AUTUMN.
Autumn, how should that languid air
That smoothed thy brow erewhile,
Be (though a frown thou dost not wear)
Mistaken for a smile?
The glow that dyes thy tawny cheek,
The gleam that lights thine eye,
Nor smiling grace, nor joy bespeak--
Thy every breath's a sigh.
Or if, perchance, a transient smile
Breaks o'er the fading scene,
To cheer thy plaintive brow the while
And wake its sad serene;
'Tis like the sickly smile that sits
On hidden sorrow's brow,
Or with the last faint hectic flits
When life is ebbing low.
From such heart-chilling smiles as these
Winter, I turn to thee--
Thy frowning skies and leafless trees
More welcome are to me.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
STUDY OF THE LATIN AND GREEK CLASSICS.
Of all the "death-bed sayings" on record, none please me more than that
of Beausobre to his son: Go, said he,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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