Poems (Blake)/A Letter

by Mary Elizabeth Blake

For works with similar titles, see A Letter.

A LETTER.

"Make haste! make haste, my darling!—the long, long year has flown;
At last, O best and dearest, my heart can claim its own!
I bore the weary waiting, but now the end is nigh,
Each little moment lingers as if 't would never fly.

"Through days of anxious toiling thy face was as a charm
To soothe my troubled spirit, to nerve my fainting arm,
Whatever hopes were darkened, whatever cares oppressed,
The thought of thee was always like blessed dreams of rest.

"The little home we talked of is ready, fresh and bright,
I almost see you smiling beside its hearth to-night;
Make haste!—I thought my spirit could mock at adverse fate,
But when love draws so near us 't is bitter hard to wait.

"And bring the fond old mother, God bless her! Tell her, dear,
She will not miss the old land when once we have her here;
The graves she left behind her will wring her heart awhile,
But soon again we 'll welcome the sunshine of her smile.

"Alas! the knees I knelt at, are cold beneath the stone,—
She'll be to me, please Heaven, as if she were my own;
And peace and rest and comfort shall fill her failing years,
With little room for sorrow and little cause for tears.

"Then say your good-by, gayly—and if the tears should start,
Oh crush them back, my darling, and hide them in your heart:
My arms will soon be round you, my lips will ease your pain,
And teach the smile to linger around your lips again."
·········
Swift came the wife and mother across the wave-tossed deep,
Alas for fond hearts' yearning! Alas for eyes that weep!
They found a swifter message of deeper peace had sped,
And the lips that burned to meet them were pale and cold and dead!