Poems Sigourney 1827/Intemperance
INTEMPERANCE.
I saw mid bowering shades a cottage home
Where elegance with sweet simplicity
Had blent her charms.—Around its graceful porch
Twined the gay woodbine, while the velvet lawn
Fresh roses sprinkled, and those snowy walls
Seem'd through their leafy canopy to smile
A welcome to the guest.—My heart was light,
As toward this bower of bliss I drew, to greet
A friend who in my careless boyhood shared
Each healthful sport, each hour of studious toil,
With kindred emulation.—And I thought
After my wanderings in a foreign clime,
How sweet to rest as he hath, pleasantly
In such pure paradise, and watch the bloom
Of young affections.—Near that open door
Two cherub children gamboll'd.—One display'd
In such strong miniature the manly charms
Of my long-parted friend, that in my soul
Woke the warm pulses of remember'd joy.—
There was the same bold forehead, where disguise
Might never lurk,—the same full hazle eye
Melting, yet ardent.—
On with willing smile
He led his fairy sister, murmuring low
In varied tones of dovelike tenderness,
And sometimes o'er her lily form would bend
In infantine protection, with such grace,
That in my arms I clasped him, and exclaim'd
"Show me thy father."—
—On a couch he lay.—
Who lay?—I dared not call him friend!—That wreck
Of nature's nobleness!—Had dire disease,
Or ruthless poverty thus changed a brow
Where beam'd bright fancy,—intellectual light,
And soaring dignity of soul?—Ah no!—
For then I would have join'd my face to his
And spoke of Heaven.—But Vice her hideous seal
Had stamp'd upon those features, and the mind,
The ethereal mind debased.—
—She too was near,
Who at God's altar gave her holiest vow
In all the trusting confidence of love
To this her chosen friend.—On her young cheek
There was a cankering grief,—and the pale trace
Of beauty's rosebud nipp'd.—
—Something I said,
But faint and brokenly of former days,
When in the paths of science and of hope,
We walk'd, twin-hearted.—Then there came a peal
Of vacant laughter from those bloated lips,
And the swoll'n hand with trembling haste was stretch'd
For friendship's grasp.
—Twas but a transient rush
Of generous feeling.—At the shouting voice
Of his young children sporting near his bed
His fiery eye-ball flash'd,—and a hoarse threat
Appall'd those innocent ones,—and that fair girl,
From whom intemperance had reft the guide
Which nature gave, in terror hid her face
Deep in her mother's robe.—
—I would have cursed
The poisonous bowl, but then in the meek eye
Of her who loved him, shone such pleading tear
Of silent, deep endurance, that all thought
Of sternness breathed itself away in sighs.
—I went my way,—for how could I sustain
Such change in one so loved!—and as I went
I mourn'd that widowhood and orphanage,
Which hath nor hope nor pity.—Sad I roam'd
Far down the violet-broider'd vale, and when
No eye beheld me, to the earth I bow'd
My head, and said in anguish,—"Oh my God!—
—What is the beauty and the strength of man,
His fairest promise, and his proudest powers
Without thine aid?—So keep us from the sins
Which in us lurk, that we at last may rise
Where is no hurtful impulse, erring choice,
Or dark temptation working baleful deeds
For penitence to purge,—but Virtue dwells
Fast by her Sire,—and finds a deathless joy."