Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/Wife of a Missionary at her Husband's Grave
WIFE OF A MISSIONARY AT HER HUSBAND'S GRAVE.
There was a new-made grave,
On a far heathen shore,
Where lonely slept a man of God,
His mission-service o'er;
There, when the setting sun
Had tinged the west with flame,
A tender infant in her arms,
A mournful woman came.
Her youthful cheek was pale,
Her fair form bending low,
As thus upon the fitful gale
She pour'd her plaint of wo:
"Friend of my inmost soul,
The turf is on thy breast,
And here amid the stranger's land
Thy precious dust must rest.
"Our helpless babe I bring,
Who knew no father's love,
Nor look'd upon this world of pain
Till thou hadst risen above;
I lay him on thy bed,
Unconscious tears to weep,
Before our last farewell we take,
And dare the faithless deep.
"Oh, when the mountain wave
Shall be our venturous path,
And the loud midnight tempest howls
In terror and in wrath,
Thy manly arm no more
My dearest prop must be,
Nor thy strong counsel nerve my soul
To brave the raging sea.
"But if our native coast
Once more these feet should tread,
And thou, the life of all my joys,
Be absent with the dead,
While each remember'd scene
Shall with thine image glow,
And friend and parent name thy name,
How shall I bear the wo?
"Is it thy voice, my love,
That bids me bear the rod,
And stay my desolated heart
Upon the widow's God?
Say'st thou, when every ray
Of hope is quench'd and dim,
The widow and the fatherless
May put their trust in Him?
"How bless'd that Word Divine,
On which my soul relies,
The resurrection of the just,
The union in the skies!"
Faith came with heavenly light,
Her struggling grief to quell,
And in the holy words of prayer
She spake her last farewell.