The fires of guilt more fiercely burn Beneath its holy smile; For half I fancy I can see My mother's sainted look in thee. "My dear lost mother! sad and pale, Mournfully sinking day by day, And with a hold on life as frail As frosted leaves, that, thin and gray, Hang feebly on their parent spray, And tremble in the gale; Yet watching o'er my childishness With patient fondness not the less For all the agony which kept Her blue eye wakeful, while I slept; That haply might have waked my own; Reproving with a tear-and, while The tooth of pain was keenly preying Upon her very heart, repaying My brief repentance with a smile. “Oh, in her meek, forgiving eye There was a brightness not of mirth A light, whose clear intensity Was borrowed not of earth. Along her cheek a deepening red And yet, each fatal token gave Unwarning of the grave. 'T was like the hue which autumn gives To yonder changed and dying leaves, Breathed over by his frosty breath; Scarce can the gazer feel that this Is but the spoiler's treacherous kiss, The mocking-smile of Death! "Sweet were the tales she used to tell On wooded Agamenticus, - And the south wind's expiring sighs Came, softly blending, on my ear, With the low tones I loved to hear: the good-the wise Tales of the pure The holy men and maids of old, In the all-sacred pages told; Of Rachel, stooped at Haran's fountains, Who paused to hear, beside her well, Lessons of love and truth, which fell Softly as Shiloh's flowing water ; And saw, beneath his pilgrim guise, The Promised One, so long foretold By holy seer and bard of old, Revealed before her wondering eyes! Her step grew weaker in our hall, And fainter, at each even-fall, Her sad voice died away. Yet on her thin, pale lip, the while, Sat Resignation's holy smile: And even my father checked his tread, "Calm as a child to slumber soothed, The still, white features into rest, To stir the drapery on her breast, "Oh, tell me, father, can the dead Walk on the earth, and look on us, And lay upon the living's head Their blessing or their curse? For, oh, last night she stood by me, The Jesuit crosses himself in awe"Jesu! what was it my daughter saw?" "She came to me last night. The dried leaves did not feel her tread; Pale, and very mournfully I heard no sound, I felt no breath Breathe o'er me from that face of death: Its blue eyes rested on my own, Rayless and cold as eyes of stone; As if love's smile were frozen there- The Jesuit makes the holy sign"How passed the vision, daughter mine?" "All dimly in the wan moonshine, As a wreath of mist will twist and twine, But those sad eyes were fixed on mine "God help thee, daughter, tell me why That spirit passed before thine eye!" "Father, I know not, save it be That deeds of mine have summoned her To leave her last rebuke with me. "My father lived a stormy life, The birch boat on his shaded floods, The wild excitement of the chase The camp-fire, blazing on the shore Of the still lakes, the clear stream, where Or angles in the shade, far more Than that restraining awe I felt Beneath my gentle mother's care, When nightly at her knee I knelt, With childhood's simple prayer. "There came a change. The wild, glad mood Of unchecked freedom passed. Amid the ancient solitude Of unshorn grass and waving wood, Sweet as those lulling sounds and fine The murmur of the wind-swept pine. A manly form was ever nigh, A bold, free hunter, with an eye Whose dark, keen glance had power to wake Both fear and love - to awe and charm; 'Twas as the wizard rattlesnake, Whose evil glances lure to harm Whose cold and small and glittering eye, Fear, doubt, thought, life itself, ere long In the warm present bliss alone Seemed I of actual life to taste. |