Oh! if to die in life's young hours, Ere childhood's buds are burst to flowers; While Hope still soars on tireless wing, Where skies are bright with changeless Spring; Ere Sorrow's tear has dimm'd the eye, That late with rapture's glance was swelling; Or Grief has sent the bursting sigh In silence to its lonely dwelling: Oh! if to part with this world only, Where all is cold, and bleak, and lonely— To welcome in those happier spheres, The loved and lost of parted years; If this give pain, or waken sadness, Oh! who can tell the more than madness Circling thro' life the hearts that bear The chains that wounded spirits wear— To live, and yet to feel thro' life The aching wish, the ceaseless strife— The yearnings of a bleeding breast, To sink within the grave to rest; To smile, when every smile must wear The hue and coldness of despair; To weep, or only strive in vain To waken tears, that ne'er again Shall cool the fever of that eye, Whose fountains are forever dry: When joys are gone, and hope has fled, And friends are changed, and love is dead, And we are doomed alone to wait, And struggle with a bitter fate— Left like some lone and towering rock, To brave the ocean's battling shock, 'Till broken by some mightier wave, That bears it to a lonely grave. My early years, how coldly bright The memory of their parted light Falls round the heart, whose cords are broken, Or, only strung to suffering's power, When struck in grief's o'erwhelming hour, Give back to sorrow's touch a token. My sire, alas! they say he died When in the flower of manhood's pride: I stood beside that parent's bier, And wondered why the big bright tear Was coursing down my mother's cheek; She took my hand, but could not speak— I kiss'd her then, and sadly smiled, Nor felt I was an orphan child. My Mother! how the thoughts of years, With all their smiles, and all their tears, Rush with the memory of her name Upon me—and I seem the same Bright, careless child she looked upon, And joyed to call her fair-haired son:— Oh, I remember well the time She led me to our favorite bower; It was in Spring's sweet, sunny prime, And just at sunset's dying hour, When woods, and hills, and waters seem Wrapt in some soft, mysterious dream— When birds are still, and folded flowers Their dark green lids are peering through, Waiting the coming evening hours, Within each bright cup to renew The wasted wealth of morning dew— When spirit voices seem to sigh In every breeze that wanders by— And thoughts grow hushed in that calm hour, Beneath its soft, subduing power. She knelt, and breathed to heaven a prayer, “That God would guard that orphan there”— Then turned, and with a faltering tone, She took my hand within her own, And said, “I ne'er should find another To love me as she loved me then”— And I could only say, “my Mother!”