LOSS OF THE FIRST BORN.
Reading edition
“A grief that passeth show.”
I saw a pale young mother, bending o’er
Her first born hope. Its soft blue eyes were closed—
Not in the balmy dream of downy rest;
In Death’s embrace the shrouded babe reposed,
It slept the dreamless sleep that wakes no more!
A low sigh struggled in her heaving breast,
But yet she wept not—hers was the deep grief
The heart in its dark desolation feels;
Which breathes not in impassioned accents wild,
But slowly the warm pulse of life congeals:
A grief, which from the world seeks no relief—
A mother’s sorrow o’er her first-born child!
She gazed upon it with a steadfast eye,
Which seemed to say—Oh! would I were with thee.
As if her every earthly hope were fled
With that departed cherub. Even he—
Her young heart’s choice, who breathed a father’s sigh
Of bitter anguish o’er the unconscious dead—
Felt not, while weeping by its funeral bier,
One pang so deep as hers, who shed no tear!
——