Laura Bridgman.
Reading edition
THE DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND GIRL, AT THE INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND, IN BOSTON
Where is the light that to the eye Heaven's holy message gave, Tinging the retina with rays From sky, and earth, and wave? Where is the sound that to the soul Mysterious passage wrought, And strangely made the moving lip A harp-string for the thought? All fled! all lost! Not even the rose[1] An odour leaves behind, That, like a broken reed, might trace The tablet of the mind. That mind! It struggles with its fate, The anxious conflict, see! As if through Bastile-bars it sought Communion with the free. Yet still its prison-robe it wears Without a prisoner's pain; For happy childhood's beaming sun Glows in each bounding vein. And bless'd Philosophy is near, In Christian armour bright, To scan the subtlest clew that leads To intellectual light. Say, lurks there not some ray of heaven Amid thy bosom's night, Some echo from a better land, To make the smile so bright? The lonely lamp in Greenland cell, Deep 'neath a world of snow, Doth cheer the loving household group Though none around may know; And, sweet one, hath our Father's hand Plac'd in thy casket dim Some radiant and peculiar lamp, To guide thy steps to Him?