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
For all the agony which kept
Her blue eye wakeful, while I slept ; And checking every tear and groan That haply might have waked my own; And bearing still, without offence, My idle words, and petulance;
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 Told where the feverish hectic fed; And yet, each fatal token gave To the mild beauty of her face A newer and a dearer grace,
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 When summer's eve was dear to us, And, fading from the darkening dell, The glory of the sunset fell
On wooded Agamenticus, - When, sitting by our cottage wall, The murmur of the Saco's fall,
And the south wind's expiring sighs Came, softly blending, on my ear, With the low tones I loved to hear:
The holy men and maids of old,
In the all-sacred pages told;
Of Rachel, stooped at Haran's fountains, Amid her father's thirsty flock, Beautiful to her kinsman seeming As the bright angels of his dreaming, On Padan-aran's holy rock; Of gentle Ruth-and her who kept Her awful vigil on the mountains, By Israel's virgin daughters wept ; Of Miriam, with her maidens, singing The song for grateful Israel meet, While every crimson wave was bringing The spoils of Egypt at her feet; Of her Samaria's humble daughter, 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, And hushed his voice, beside her bed: Beneath the calm and sad rebuke Of her meek eye's imploring look,. The scowl of hate his brow forsook, And, in his stern and gloomy eye,
At times, a few unwonted tears Wet the dark lashes, which for years Hatred and pride had kept so dry.
"Calm as a child to slumber soothed, As if an angel's hand had smoothed
The still, white features into rest, Silent and cold, without a breath
To stir the drapery on her breast, Pain, with its keen and poisoned fang, The horror of the mortal pang, The suffering look her brow had worn, The fear, the strife, the anguish gone — She slept at last in death!
“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, As I lay beneath the woodland tree!"
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; She stood by me in the wan moonlight, In the white robes of the dead!
Pale, and very mournfully She bent her light form over me.
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; Yet, in their fixed, unchanging gaze, Something, which spoke of early days- A sadness in their quiet glare,
As if love's smile were frozen there Came o'er me with an icy thrill; Oh God! I feel its presence still !"
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, And scatter, and melt into the light- So scattering-melting on my sight, The pale, cold vision passed; But those sad eyes were fixed on mine Mournfully to the last."
"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 From the unbreathing sepulchre,
To leave her last rebuke with me. Ah, wo for me! my mother died Just at the moment when I stood Close on the verge of womanhood, A child in every thing beside; And when my wild heart needed most Her gentle counsels, they were lost.
"My father lived a stormy life, Of frequent change and daily strife; And God forgive him! left his child To feel, like him, a freedom wild; To love the red man's dwelling place, The birch boat on his shaded floods,
The wild excitement of the chase Sweeping the ancient woods,
The camp-fire, blazing on the shore
Of the still lakes, the clear stream, where The idle fisher sets his wear,
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, And waters glancing bright and fast,
A softened voice was in my ear,
Sweet as those lulling sounds and fine The hunter lifts his head to hear, Now far and faint, now full and near- 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;
'T was as the wizard rattlesnake,
Whose evil glances lure to harm
Whose cold and small and glittering eye, And brilliant coil, and changing dye, Draw, step by step, the gazer near, With drooping wing and cry of fear, Yet powerless all to turn away, A conscious, but a willing prey
Fear, doubt, thought, life itself, ere long Merged in one feeling deep and strong. Faded the world which I had known, A poor vain shadow, cold and waste,
In the warm present bliss alone
Seemed I of actual life to taste.
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