Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/114

Touched was that bleeding chord of love,
    To which the mightiest bow:
Again swept back the tide of years,
    Again his first born moved,
The fair, the graceful, the sublime,
    The erring, yet beloved.

And ever, cherished by his side,
    One chosen friend was near,
To share in boyhood's ardent sport,
    Or youth's untamed career,
With him the merry chase he sought
    Beneath the dewy morn,
With him in knightly tourney rode,
    This Bernardine du Born.

Then in the mourning father's soul
    Each trace of ire grew dim,
And what his buried idol loved
    Seemed cleansed of guilt to him—
And faintly through his tears he spake,
    "God send his grace to thee,
And for the dear sake of the dead,
    Go forth—unscathed and free."