LOVE AND DEATH.
[Arranged from fragments of MS. found in the portmanteau of a young traveller who died suddenly at a wayside inn in Idaho, in the year 1850.]
When toward me bends the shade of death,
And friends deplore my waning breath,
Let woman, flushed with vernal charms,
Support me in her tender arms,
And kindly let her bosom swell
For one who loved her sex too well.
And when the solemn change has come,
Should sorrow hold my angel dumb,
And dim her eyes with humid veil,
And fix them on my features pale,
My spirit, raised on wing to go,
Will hover o’er her breast of snow,
And on her saddened lips impress
The seal of love’s farewell caress,
Then, if a tear-drop chance to roll
Adown her cheek, my flying soul
Will snatch the gem,—for earth too bright,—
And bear it to the realms of light;
Nor there the sparkling pledge resign,
But hoard it as a thing divine,
And smile to see its feeble ray
Blend with thy beams, Eternity!
And now, dear woman, gently press
Those lids that claim thy tenderness,
And hide those faded orbs of blue
That oft in rapture rolled on you,
And through the silent hours of night
Cradled your image in their light.
Now let thy loving fingers close
Those lips above their ivory rows,
And think, while you the task fulfil,
How oft thine own have made them thrill,
How oft, with youthful passion warm,
Their kisses told my heart’s alarm,
Enough; retire, forever blest;
Let meaner hands perform the rest.
Next, let nor clown nor knave presume
To bear my relics to the tomb;
Let bards and sages, men of mind,
Convey it thence with bosoms kind,
And think, along the solemn way,
“We bear a brother’s weight to-day.”
Let no grim priest of narrow view
My spirit’s mystic flight pursue,
And o’er my corse his terrors sound
To awe his trembling dupes around,
And stupidly profane the end
Of slandered Truth’s devoted friend.
Now place me in my rayless bed,
And carve these lines above my head:
“This simple mound conceals from sight,
A brother of poetic light.
His heart was Love’s volcanic throne,
Love, the sole king he e’er would own.
All men, of every hue of skin,
He reckoned as his nearest kin;
He looked where’er oppression trod,
And felt the inward flash of God,
And prayed with an immortal hope
For Freedom’s universal scope.
Titles and power by outrage won,
And handed down from sire to son,
He ever held in utter scorn,
And honoured most the lowly born.
His follies, oh! the vast amount—
Forgive them ere you stop to count,
And let oblivion’s velvet pall,
In charity conceal them all.
“Inquirest thou the poet’s creed?
’Twas brief, but served his utmost need:
Truth is divine, wherever found,
On Christian or on pagan ground;
Engraven on the hearts of men
Are God’s commandments, more than ten;
The universe his laws proclaim,
To learn them be my constant aim;
Goodness and mercy, holy these
In Jesus or in Socrates;
The glory of an earthly span
Is service to our fellow man.
’Twas thus with chastened heart he thought,
Nor cared what theologians taught;
And if he erred to an excess
In not believing more, or less,
Ye who accuse, depart in fear,
And spare his bones your censure here.
If your own merits far excel
The poet’s troubled life, ’tis well.
If in a truer light you live,
Go! learn to pity and forgive.”
The End.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Typographical errors have been silently corrected..
Footnotes have been moved to the end of the poem in which they occur.