Page:Poems (1853).djvu/20

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Too often the links have been broken,
 That bound me in friendship’s bright chain;
Too often has fancy deceived me
 To blind or to charm me again;
And I sigh o’er my young heart’s illusions,
 With a sorrow I would were disdain.

But now, as the clouds return earthward,
 From the cold and void ether above;
As on pinions all drooping and weary,
 O’er the waste flew the wandering dove;
O’er the tide of the world’s troubled waters,
 I return to the ark of thy love.

Here, at length, my tired spirit reposes;
 Here my heart’s strongest tendrils entwine;
Here its warmest and deepest affections
 It lays on earth’s holiest shrine:
Dearest mother, receive the devotion
 Of the life thou hast given from thine.

Here, pressed to thy bosom, the tempests
 That sweep over life’s stormy sea,
Have beat, in their impotent fury,—
 They were winged with no terror for me;
If I shrank from the fearful encounter,
 If I trembled—it was but for thee.