Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/232

Until she bade them droop and pass away
With him she mourned.
                                         And so, with widowed heart
She parted out her pittance to the poor,
Sat by the bed of sickness, dried the tear
Of the forgotten weeper, and did robe
Herself in mercy, like the bride of Heaven.
Years past away, and still she seemed unchanged,
The principle of beauty hath no age,
It looketh forth, even though the eye be dim,
The forehead frost-crowned, yea, it looketh forth,
Wherever there doth dwell a tender soul,
That in its chastened cheerfulness would shed
Sweet, charity on all whom God hath made.
    Years past away, and 'mid her holy toils
The hermit-heart found rest. Each night it seemed,
When to her lonely, prayerful couch she came,
As if an angel folded his pure wing
Around her breast, inspiring it to hold
A saint's endurance.
                                 Of her spirit's grief
She never spake. But as the flush of health
Receded from her cheek, her patient eye
Gathered new lustre, and the mighty wing
Of that supporting angel seemed to gird
Closer her languid bosom, while in dreams
A tuneful tone, like his who slumbered deep
Amid his country's dead, told her of climes
Where vows are never sundered.
                                                       One mild eve,
When on the foreheads of the sleeping flowers
The loving spring-dews hung their diamond wreaths,
She from her casket drew a raven curl,
Which once had clustered round her lost one's brow,
And prest it to her lips and laid it down
Upon her bible, while she knelt to pour
The nightly incense of a stricken heart