Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 34, Pages 111-114
HYMNS OF LIFE. BY MRS HEMANS.
No. III.
BURIAL OF AN EMIGRANT'S CHILD IN THE FORESTS.
Scene.—The banks of a solitary river in an American Forest. A tent under pine-trees in the foreground. Agnes sitting before the tent with a child in her arms, apparently sleeping.
Agnes. Surely 'tis all a dream—a fever-dream!
The desolation and the agony—
The strange red sunrise—and the gloomy woods,
So terrible with their dark giant boughs,
And the broad lonely river! all a dream!
And my boy's voice will wake me, with its clear,
Wild, singing tones, as they were wont to come
Through the wreath'd sweet-brier, at my lattice panes,
In happy, happy England! Speak to me!
Speak to thy mother, bright one! she hath watch'd
All the dread night beside thee, till her brain
Is darken'd by swift waves of fantasies,
And her soul faint with longing for thy voice.
Oh! I must wake him with one gentle kiss
On his fair brow!
(Shudderingly) The strange damp thrilling touch!
The marble chill! Now, now it rushes back—
Now I know all!—dead—dead!—a fearful word!
My boy hath left me in the wilderness,
To journey on without the blessed light
In his deep loving eyes—he's gone—he's gone!
[Her Husband enters.
Husband. Agnes, my Agnes! hast thou look'd thy last
On our sweet slumberer's face? The hour is come—
The couch made ready for his last repose.
Agnes. Not yet! thou canst not take him from me yet!
If he but left me for a few short days,
This were too brief a gazing-time, to draw
His angel-image into my fond heart,
And fix its beauty there. And now—oh! now,
Never again the laughter of his eye
Shall send its gladdening summer through my soul—
Never on earth again. Yet, yet delay!
Thou canst not take him from me.
Husband.My belov'd!
Is it not God hath taken him? the God
That took our first-born, o'er whose early grave
Thou didst bow down thy saint-like head, and say,
"His will be done!"
Agnes.Oh! that near household grave,
Under the turf of England, seem'd not half,
Not half so much to part me from my child
As these dark woods. It lay beside our home,
And I could watch the sunshine, through all hours,
Loving and clinging to the grassy spot,
And I could dress its greensward with fresh flowers,
Familiar, meadow-flowers. O'er thee my babe,
The primrose will not blossom! Oh! that now,
Together, by thy fair young sister's side,
We lay, 'midst England’s valleys
