Poems (Acton)/Tears of Bitterness

TEARS OF BITTERNESS. ——

A father's tears were falling fast
 On a young though faded brow;
They were falling bitterly, for hope
 Had passed for ever now.

Yet the 'reft parent bent the knee,
 With prayers for mercy still,
Mingled with murmurs, that his child
 Bent to a holier will.

But the hand of Death was on it,
 And the fading breath was hushed;
And the mourner of the sainted one
 Lay, by that last blow, crushed.

He had so twined within his soul
 That frail and withered flow'r,
It seemed he could not tear it thence,
 And live through that dark hour.

And truly was the angel-boy
 Meet shrine for parent's love;
He had had early visions
 Of that happier realm above.

And calmly, as his life had passed,
 Passed forth his spirit bright;
And the child awoke to rapture's day,
 And the man to sorrow's night.

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Still seemed it as a dream, until
 The grass grew o'er the dead,
And the flowers he had cherished
 Waved gently o'er his head;

For the father's heart still, still it clung
 To the grave of all his joy:
The brilliant future of his hopes
 Lay with his fair-haired boy.

And he thought the tears which ever dewed
 That tomb of loveliness,
Had, far beyond all other tears,
 Of a stern world's bitterness.

But years have passed; and, passing, can
 Bring balm to blighted hearts;
And the parent's grief—like morning mists
 Before the sun—departs.

He has started from his woe to feel
 Again love's joys and fears,
And paused upon his lonely path
 Through this dark vale of tears;

To circle, with his time-chilled hopes,
 Another spirit bright;
To welcome to his darkened soul
 Once more a ray of light.

Aye, once again young footsteps ring
 In the deserted halls;
And the shadow of a fair young form
 On each gloomy spot there falls.

More years have passed, and that laugh of mirth
 Hath changed in its glad tone;
In childhood's hour we must seek to list
 To the careless laugh alone.

'Tis manhood: and that laugh but wakes
 In scorn of guiding age,
Mocking the hand that pointeth out
 Fate's darkly-written page—

And then that parent stands bereft
 Of the heart's peace and pride;
Made desolate on earth by one,
 Best loved of all beside!

Left to watch o'er the fallen shrine,
 By Guilt's red hand laid low,
To pass alone again upon
 His weary way of woe.

To see the young heart turned to sin,
 The young brow seared by shame;
To know that justice dares not breathe
 The so-long-honoured name:

Left to lay all of hope within
 A lone and guilt-made grave;
Where e'en earth's blossoms droop, as o'er
 A felon form they wave.

It seemed as if he had but lived
 And loved to learn of woe;
How wild the doom which man would call
 His happiness below!

How oft the frowns on fortune's brow
 May be its smiles—and care
May make so dark the soul at last,
 That e'en past gloom seems fair!

And how there may be solace found
 For the 'reft heart's despair,
When it but mourns one passed to bliss—
 One for this earth too fair.

How there may be sad tears for such,
 Which time's swift hand can dry;
Unmingled with the bitter drops
 Of hopeless misery!

Tears which—the dark hour gone—will flow
 Like the untroubled stream,
And gently cease, when that past grief
 Is as a sadd'ning dream.
R. A.