WeRead Powered by ReaderPub

Hazel bloom cover

Hazel bloom

Chapter 38: Questionings.

By Julia Carter Aldrich

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

Poetry Religion/Spirituality

About This Book

A compact collection of lyrical poems and short narratives that meditate on motherhood, faith, and the consolations found in nature. Many pieces recall childhood and domestic scenes, confront suffering and loss, and draw on Christian imagery to offer comfort and moral reflection. The verse moves between contemplative monologue, descriptive nature writing, and occasional narrative sketches, balancing personal feeling with devotional and ethical concerns. Throughout, simple pleasures—flowers, seasons, quiet homelife—are set against questions of destiny, grief, and spiritual hope.

Questionings.

When the pallid lids have fallen

O’er the eyes in dreamless sleep—

Eyes that wake no more with watching

Nor in loneliness will weep,

Will a touch of pity soften—

Warm that unimpassioned gaze?

For a moment will affection

Hallow all their clouded days?

When the heart, no longer beating,

All its painful throbbings o’er—

When it stirs life’s crimson current

With its hopes and fears no more,

Will another heart feel sorrow

For the stillness resting there?

Will it for a whole tomorrow

Wear a saddened shade of care?

When the weary hands are folded

For that long unbroken rest,

And the spirit wings in freedom

To its home among the blest,

Will one tender feeling waken

In that heart a fond regret,

That will last thro’ summer’s blooming—

That will never quite forget?

When the lips are cold and silent—

Hushed for aye their gentle speech,

With love’s whispers dying on them,

Will their mute appealing reach

To the rock-girt fount of feeling?

Will Remorse with stinging rod,

Smite and bring the welling tear-drops

To bedew the new-laid sod?