Poems (Hale)/A Sketch

by Mary Whitwell Hale

For works with similar titles, see A Sketch.

A SKETCH.

 Bright and most beautiful she sank to rest;
Not as the angry storm-wind, spent with rage,
Ceases its roaring, to resume once more
Its march of devastation o'er the land;
But as the summer breeze, that gently floats
Around our path, and wafts the rich perfume
Of Nature's glorious flowers, when sunset glows,
And kindly lingers in the radiant west.

 Scarcely had eighteen summers o'er her head
Their golden sunlight lavished. It was well
That, as the summer floweret drooped and died,
When breathed upon by Autumn's siroc lip,
That lovelier flower should fold its bursting leaves,
Which God's own touch had painted, that its bloom
Might yet unfold in heaven's immortal bowers.

 The hopes of many a glad and gushing heart
Were garnered in her. That pale mother's eye,
Dimmed by its midnight vigil at her couch,
Shed o'er her rest the silent, secret tear.
Oft to the throne of God her prayer arose,
That He would spare that treasure of her heart.
She was a Christian mother; and the prayer,
"Thy will be done," though choked by many a sigh,
And scarce articulate from excess of grief,
Was yet the whisper of her bursting heart.

 Life was extinct; not less in that young heart,
The last sole relic of a mother's gems,
Than in her earthly hopes, that suffering one.
Widowed and childless in her misery,
Where could that mother turn her asking eye
Better than to His throne, whose grace is near
The Christian mourner in his agony?
He saw her anguish, heard the prayer of faith,
And gently led her to her heavenly home,
Where each bright jewel, lent her upon earth,
Shines, fair and fadeless, in the courts of heaven.