The Broken Bud: Or, Reminiscences of a Bereaved Mother

Front Cover
R. Carter & Brothers, 1861 - 325 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 256 - THERE is no flock, however watched and tended. But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair! The air is full of farewells to the dying, And mournings for the dead ; The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Will not be comforted. Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions Not from the ground arise, But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise.
Page 303 - And with them the Being Beauteous Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven. With a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mine. And she sits and gazes at me With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies.
Page 203 - WE watched her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro. So silently we seemed to speak, So slowly moved about As we had lent her half our powers To eke her living out. Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied — We thought her dying when she slept And sleeping when she died. For when the morn came dim and sad, And chill with early showers, Her quiet eyelids closed — she had Another morn than ours.
Page iii - SOMETIMES hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.
Page 233 - Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it ? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours, together, saying, Rejoice with me ; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
Page 297 - No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights ; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection — when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness — who would root out such a sorrow from the heart...
Page 297 - The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal — every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open — this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.
Page 213 - THE world's a room of sickness, where each heart Knows its own anguish and unrest ; The truest wisdom there, and noblest art, Is his who skills of comfort best ; Whom by the softest step and gentlest tone Enfeebled spirits own, And love to raise the languid eye, When, like an angel's wing, they feel him fleeting by...
Page 257 - We will be patient, and assuage the feeling We may not wholly stay ; By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way THE BUILDERS.
Page 103 - tis lovely! — Childhood's lip and cheek, Mantling beneath its earnest brow of thought — Gaze — yet what seest thou in those fair, and meek, And fragile things, as but for sunshine wrought? — Thou seest what grief must nurture for the sky, What death must fashion for eternity ! O ! joyous creatures ! that will sink to rest.

Bibliographic information