Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Atual Anterior: 12. Uma Visão de Filosofia Seguinte: 14. As Marias
(p. 45)
13.
POIS MEU FILHO ESTAVA MORTO,
E VIVE NOVAMENTE;
ESTAVA PERDIDO E O ENCONTREI”
SHE
sat at the open window, while the cool breeze wandered by,
And the glories of the sunset lit up the western sky,
O’er all the pleasant landscape crept the twilight grey,
And out across the meadows where the village church-yard lay.
Then slowly, slowly, one by one, the watchful stars
o’erhead,
Came out and looked down silently upon the quiet dead,
And down the pathway of the dale, the lengthened shadows fell,
And from the ivied belfry rang out the evening knell.
She heard the winds go whispering by, she heard their footsteps pass
Amid the tall unbending trees and
through the quivering grass,
(p. 46)
She heard them murmuring in her ear with voices low and mild,
“Why weepest thou? he
is not dead, –– the Master called thy child.”
She rose, and backward from her brow she pushed her sunny hair,
“O, mock me not!” she answered them, –– “my boy lies lifeless there!
And, O! I rather would be dead than live of him bereft,
For now I have no other babe, I have no darling left.
“Ye winds, that round his new-made grave in endless circles sweep,
Step lightly, lest ye wake my dear, he lieth
there asleep; ––
Asleep? said I, alas! alas! my darling babe is dead,
From that long sleep he cannot wake, nor rise from that cold bed,
He lies alone, O, all alone! amid the silent
gloom,
Upon his eyes the damps of death, –– the darkness of the tomb,
While I sit here secure and safe, within the sheltered
room.
“Can ye see him, O ye winds, as he lies below at rest?
With his baby hands crossed peacefully upon his white-robed breast,
(p. 47)
O kiss for me his pale cold lips that once so sweetly smiled, ––
Ah me! I am no mother now, –– I have no more a child!”
Thus while she spake, on ghostly wings the
winds obedient fled,
Down to the vale below the hills, where slept the peaceful dead,
And gloom and silence fell around, and sank the western red.
But she sat beside the casement still, and clasped her aching brow,
And whispered sadly to her heart, “I am no mother now,
But yesternight my darling babe lay dead upon
my breast,
But yesternight his pale thin hands within my
own I press’d,
And with the mark of CHRIST’S dear Cross I signed
his forehead white,
And watched his coffin carried forth, with flowers all bedight,
I laid the roses on his brow, I closed his sweet
blue eyes,
To-day he sleeps beneath the earth, and shall no more arise!
“O me! to-day I saw him
laid beneath the clay cold sod,
(p. 48)
I knelt beside the good old priest, and heard him pray to GOD,
I watched the earth, –– the cold damp earth, –– above the coffin pilled,
––
I knew I was no mother then, –– I knew I had no child!
“They told me what I told him once, that we
should meet again,
GOD pardon
me my doubting heart, –– for all seemed over then!
I could not hope as others hoped, nor heed the words they said,
I only knew I was alone, –– I knew my boy was dead!
“Ah me! why is my faith
all gone? –– my trust in GOD forgot?
Why do I prate of holy things, and yet believe them not?
O what if all were some wild dream? and what if there should be
No other life in store for us? no Immortality?
––
I was a Christian till he died, but now I am alone,
And it is hard to live in hope, when all we love is gone!
Oft times on his defenceless head, will beat the
pitiless storm,
And I shall hear it while I sit at home secure and warm;
Ay, I shall hear it in the night against the window-pane,
And I shall lie awake and wish my darling back again!
(p. 49)
Then too, the winter time will come, –– the winter wild and chill,
And snow will cover all the earth, but he will lie
there still,
Aye he will sleep there night and day in the bosom of the hill!”
Then the winds answered as they passed, low murmuring in her ear,
“The churchyard we have searched throughout,
thine infant is not there,
His coffin holds a little dust, all lifeless and defiled,
A little empty senseless dust, –– but not thy darling
child.
“In vain we paced GOD’S acre o’er, with footsteps soft and slow,
In vain among the low green mounds we wandered to and fro,
We kiss’d the flowers above his tomb, that
blossom fresh and fair,
We could not kiss thy darling’s lips, –– he is no longer there!
“We sought him in his narrow bed, we lingered
near the spot,
We kissed the blossoms on his grave, because we found him not,
(p. 50)
We kissed the moonbeams as they fell upon the emerald sod,
And when we passed the open porch, our sighs went up to GOD.
“But as we mounted through the air, and cleft the far-off skies,
We saw an angel standing at the gates of paradise,
And by his side a little child, exceeding bright and fair,
All garmented in robes of white, with roses in his hair;
Then from the heavens fell a voice like music sweet and mild,
‘Return and tell the mourning one, that ye have found her child!’”
Anon into the gathering shade, the light
winged breezes passed,
While upward towards the purpling sky, one longing glance she cast,
Then on her breast her hands she pressed, and whispered as she smiled,
“Thank GOD, I am a mother still, and I have still a child!”
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Atual Anterior: 12. Uma Visão de Filosofia Seguinte: 14. As Marias