The Widowed Mother

Beside her Babe, who sweetly slept, A widowed mother sat and wept O'er years of love gone by; And as the sobs thick-gathering came, She murmured her dead husband's name 'Mid that sad lullaby. Well might that lullaby be sad, For not one single friend she had On this cold-hearted earth; The sea will not give back its prey— And they were wrapt in foreign clay Who gave the orphan birth. Steadfastly as a star doth look Upon a little murmuring brook, She gazed upon the bosom And fair brow of her sleeping son— 'O merciful Heaven! when I am gone Thine is this earthly blossom!' While thus she sat—a sunbeam broke Into the room; the babe awoke, And from his cradle smiled! Ah me! what kindling smiles met there! I know not whether was more fair, The mother or her child! With joy fresh-sprung from short alarms, The smiler stretched his rosy arms, And to her bosom leapt— All tears at once were swept away, And said a face as bright as day,— 'Forgive me that I wept!' Sufferings there are from nature sprung, Ear hath not heard, nor poet's tongue May venture to declare; But this as Holy Writ is sure, 'The griefs she bids us here endure She can herself repair!'