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# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/The Tomb of Absalom

THE TOMB OF ABSALOM.
Is this thy tomb, amid the mournful shades
Of the deep valley of Jehoshaphat,
Thou son of David? Kidron's gentle brook
Is murmuring near, as if it fain would tell
Thy varied history. Methinks I see
Thy graceful form, thy smile, thy sparkling eye,
The glorious beauty of thy flowing hair,
And that bright, eloquent lip, whose cunning stole
The hearts of all the people. Didst thou waste
The untold treasures of integrity,
The gold of conscience, for their light applause,
Thou fair dissembler?
 Say, rememberest thou
When o'er yon flinty steep of Olivet
A sorrowing train went up? Dark frowning seers
Denouncing judgment on a rebel prince,
Past sadly on; and next a crownless king
Walking in sad and humbled majesty,
While hoary statesmen bent upon his brow
Indignant looks of tearful sympathy.
What caused the weeping there?
 Thou heardst it not,
For thou within the city's walls didst hold
Thy revel brief and base. So thou could'st set
The embattled host against thy father's life,
The king of Israel, and the loved of God!
He 'mid the evils of his changeful lot,
Saul's moody hatred, stern Philistia's spear,
His alien wanderings, and his warrior toil,
Found nought so bitter as the rankling thorn
Set by thy madness of ingratitude
Deep in his yearning soul.
 What were thy thoughts
When in the mesh of thy own tresses snared
Amid the oak whose quiet verdure mocked
Thy misery, forsook by all who shared
Thy meteor-greatness and constrained to learn
There in that solitude of agony,
A traitor hath no friends!—what were thy thoughts
When death careering on the triple dart
Of vengeful Joab found thee? To thy God
Rose there one cry of penitence, one prayer
For that unmeasured mercy which can cleanse
Unbounded guilt? Or turned thy stricken heart
Toward him who o'er thy infant graces watched
With tender pride, and all thy sins of youth
In blindfold fondness pardoned? All thy crimes
Were cancelled in that plentitude of love
Which laves with fresh and everlasting tide
A parent's heart.  I see that form which awed
The foes of Israel with its victor-might
Bowed low in grief, and hear upon the breeze
That sweeps the palm-groves of Jerusalem,
The wild continuous wail,—"Oh Absalom!
My son! My son!"
 We turn us from thy tomb,
Usurping prince! Thy beauty and thy grace
Have perished with thee, but thy fame survives—
The ingrate son that pierced a father's heart.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/The Baptism

THE BAPTISM.
'Twas near the close of that blest day, when, with melodious swell,
To crowded mart and lonely vale, had spoke the Sabbath-bell;
And on a broad, unruffled stream, with bordering verdure bright,
The westering sunbeam richly shed a tinge of crimson light.
When, lo! a solemn train appeared, by their loved pastor led,
And sweetly rose the holy hymn, as toward that stream they sped,
And he its cleaving, crystal breast, with graceful movement trod,
His steadfast eye upraised, to seek communion with its God.
Then bending o'er his staff, approached that willow-fringed shore,
A man of many weary years, with furrowed temples hoar,
And faintly breathed his trembling lip—"Behold, I fain would be
Buried in baptism with my Lord, ere death shall summon me."
With brow benign, like Him whose hand did wavering Peter guide,
The pastor bore his tottering frame through that translucent tide,
And plunged him 'neath the shrouding wave, and spake the Triune name,
And joy upon that withered face, in wondering radiance came.
And then advanced a lordly form, in manhood's towering pride,
Who from the gilded snares of earth had wisely turned aside,
And following in His steps, who bowed to Jordan's startled wave,
In deep humility of soul, faithful this witness gave.
Who next?—A fair and fragile form, in snowy robe doth move,
That tender beauty in her eye that wakes the vow of love—
Yea, come, thou gentle one, and arm thy soul with strength divine,
This stern world hath a thousand darts to vex a breast like thine.
Beneath its smile a traitor's kiss is oft in darkness bound—
Cling to that Comforter, who holds a balm for every wound;
Propitiate that Protector's care, who never will forsake,
And thou shalt strike the harp of praise, even when thy heart-strings break.
Then with a firm, unshrinking step, the watery path she trod,
And gave, with woman's deathless trust, her being to her God,
And when all drooping from the flood she rose, like lily-stem,
Methought that spotless brow might wear an angel's diadem.
Yet more! Yet more!—How meek they bow to their Redeemer's rite,
Then pass with music on their way, like joyous sons of light;
Yet, lingering on those shores I staid, till every sound was hushed,
For hallowed musings o'er my soul, like spring-swollen rivers rushed.
'Tis better, said the Voice within, to bear a Christian's cross,
Than sell this fleeting life for gold, which Death shall prove but dross,
Far better, when yon shrivelled skies are like a banner furled,
To share in Christ's reproach, than gain the glory of the world.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/The Bell of St. Regis

THE BELL OF ST. REGIS.
In 1704, when Deerfield was taken by the Indians, a small church-bell was carried away on a sledge as far as Lake Champlain and buried. It was afterwards taken up and conveyed to Canada.
The red men came in their pride and wrath,
 Deep vengeance fired their eye,
And the blood of the white was in their path,
 And the flame from his roof rose high.
Then down from the burning church they tore
 The bell of tuneful sound,
And on with their captive train they bore
That wonderful thing toward their native shore,
 The rude Canadian bound.
But now and then, with a fearful tone,
 It struck on their startled ear—
And sad it was, 'mid the mountains lone,
Or the ruined tempest muttered moan,
 That terrible voice to hear.
It seemed like the question that stirs the soul
 Of its secret good or ill,
And they quaked as its stern and solemn toll
 Re-echoed from rock to hill.
And they started up in their broken dream,
 'Mid the lonely forest-shade,
And thought that they heard the dying scream,
And saw the blood of slaughter stream
 Afresh through the village glade.
Then they sat in council, those chieftains old,
 And a mighty pit was made,
Where the lake with its silver waters rolled
They buried that bell 'neath the verdant mould,
 And crossed themselves and prayed.
And there till a stately powow came
 It slept in its tomb forgot,
With a mantle of fur, and a brow of flame
 He stood on that burial spot:
They wheeled the dance with its mystic round
 At the stormy midnight hour,
And a dead man's hand on his breast he bound,
And invoked, ere he broke that awful ground,
 The demons of pride and power.
Then he raised the bell, with a nameless rite,
 Which none but himself might tell,
In blanket and bear-skin he bound it tight,
And it journeyed in silence both day and night,
 So strong was that magic spell.
It spake no more, till St. Regis' tower
 In northern skies appeared,
And their legends extol that powow's power
Which lulled that knell like the poppy flower,
As conscience now slumbereth a little hour
 In the cell of a heart that 's seared.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/The Bitterness of Death

THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.
"O Death! how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that is at ease in his possessions." Ecclesiasticus IV. 1.
The rich man moved in pomp. His soul was gorged
With the gross fulness of material things,
So that it spread no pinion forth to seek
A better world than this. There was a change.
And in the sleepless chamber of disease,
Curtained and nursed, and ill-content he lay.
He had a wasted and an eager look,
And on the healer's brow he fixed a glance,
Keen—yet imploring.
 What he greatly feared
Had come upon him. So he went his way—
The way of all the earth—and his lands took
Another's name.
 Why dost thou come, O Death!
To print the bridal chamber with thy foot,
And leave the ruin of thy ministry,
When love, and joy, and hope, so late had hung
Their diamond cressets?
 To the cradle side
Why need'st thou steal, changing to thine own hue
Of ghastly pale, the youthful mother's brow;
And for her nightly watchings, leaving nought
In payment, but a piece of marble clay.
And the torn heart-strings in her bleeding breast,
—Come to the aged, he hath sorely trod
Time's rugged road, until his staff is broke,
And his feet palsied, and his friends all gone;
Put thy cold finger on life's last faint spark,
And scarcely gasping he shall follow thee.
—Come to the saint, for he will meekly take
Thy message to his soul, and welcome thee
In Jesu's name, and bless the shadowy gate
Which thou dost open.
 Wait awhile, Oh Death!
For those who love this fleeting world too well,
Wait, till it force their hearts to turn away
From all its empty promises, and loathe
Its deep hypocrisy. Oh! wait for those
Who have not tasted yet of Heaven's high grace,
Nor bring them to their audit, all unclothed
With a Redeemer's righteousness.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/The Boy's Last Bequest

THE BOY'S LAST BEQUEST.
Half-raised upon his dying couch, his head
Drooped o'er his mother's bosom,—like a bud
Which, broken from its parent stalk, adheres
By some attenuate fibre. His thin hand
From 'neath the downy pillow drew a book
And slowly prest it to his bloodless lip.
 "Mother, dear mother, see your birth-day gift,
Fresh and unsoiled. Yet have I kept your word,
And ere I slept each night, and every morn,
Did read its pages with my humble prayer,
Until this sickness came."
 He paused—for breath
Came scantly, and with a toilsome strife.
"Brother or sister have I none, or else
I'd lay this Bible on their heart, and say,
Come read it on my grave, among the flowers:
So you who gave must take it back again,
And love it for my sake" "My son!—My son!"
Whispered the mourner in that tender tone
Which woman in her sternest agony
Commands, to soothe the pang of those she loves—
 "The soul!—the soul!—to whose charge yield you that!"
"To God who gave it." So that trusting soul,
With a slight shudder, and a lingering smile,
Left the pale clay for its Creator's arms.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/To Bereaved Parents

TO BEREAVED PARENTS.
Tender guides, in sorrow weeping,
 O'er your first-born's smitten bloom,
Or fond memory's vigil keeping
 Where the fresh turf marks her tomb.
Ye no more shall see her bearing
 Pangs that woke the dove-like moan,
Still for your affliction caring,
 Though forgetful of her own.
Ere the bitter cup she tasted,
 Which the hand of care doth bring—
Ere the glittering pearls were wasted,
 From glad childhood's fairy string,
Ere one chain of hope had rusted—
 Ere one wreath of joy was dead—
To the Saviour, whom she trusted,
 Strong in faith, her spirit fled.
Gone—where no dark sin is cherished,
 Where nor woes, nor fears invade,
Gone—ere youth's first flower had perished.
 To a youth that ne'er can fade.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/The Children of Henry First

THE CHILDREN OF HENRY FIRST.
Light sped a bark from Gallia's strand
 Across the azure main,
And on her deck a joyous band,
 A proud and courtly train,
Surrounded Albion's princely heir
 Who toward his realm returned,
And music's cheering strain was there,
 And hearts with pleasure burned.
It was a fair and glorious sight
 That gallant bark to see,
With floating streamers glittering bright
 In pomp of chivalry:
The smooth sea kissed her as she flew,
 The gentle gale impelled,
As if each crested billow knew
 What wealth her bosom held.
But strangely o'er the summer sky
 A sable cloud arose,
And hollow winds careering high
 Rushed on like armed foes;
Loud thunders roll—wild tempests rave,
 Red lightnings cleave the sky—
What is yon wreck amid the wave?
 And whence that fearful cry?
See! see! amid the foaming surge
 There seems a speck to float,
And with such speed as oars can urge
 Toils on the labouring boat,
The Prince is safe—but to his ear
 There fell a distant shriek,
Which to his strained eye brought the tear,
 And paleness to his cheek.
That voice! 'twas by his cradle side,
 When with sweet dream he slept,
It ruled his wrath, it soothed his pride,
 When moody boyhood wept,
'Twas with him in his hour of glee,
 Gay sports and pastimes rare,
And at his sainted mother's knee,
 Amid the evening prayer.
Plunging he dared the breakers hoarse,
 None might the deed restrain,
And battled with a maniac's force
 The madness of the main:
He snatched his sister from the wreck,
 Faint was her accent dear,
Yet strong her white arms 'twined his neck—
 "Blest William! art thou here?"
The wild waves swelled like mountains on,
 The blasts impetuous sweep;
Where is the heir of England's throne?
 Go—ask the insatiate deep!
He sleeps in Ocean's coral grove,
 Pale pearls his bed adorn,
A martyr to that holy love
 Which with his life was born.
Woe was in England's halls that day,
 Woe in her royal towers,
While low her haughty monarch lay
 To wail his smitten flowers;
And though protracted years bestow
 Bright honour's envied store,
Yet on that crowned and lofty brow
 The smile sat never more.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/The Burmans and their Missionary

THE BURMANS AND THEIR MISSIONARY.
"Are you Jesus Christ's man? Give us a writing that tells about Jesus Christ." Letter of Rev. Dr. Judson.
There is a cry in Burmah, and a rush
Of thousand footsteps from the distant bound
Of watery Siam and the rich Cathay.
From the far northern frontier, pilgrims meet
The central dwellers in the forest-shades,
And on they press together. Eager hope
Sits in their eye, and on their lips the warmth
Of strong request. Is it for bread they seek,
Like the dense multitude which fainting hung
Upon the Saviour's words, till the third day
Closed in and left them hungering!
 Not for food
Or raiment ask they. Simply girding on
The scanty garment o'er the weary limb,
They pass unmarked the lofty domes of wealth
Inquiring for a stranger. There he stands,
The mark of foreign climes is on his brow;
He hath no power, no costly gifts to deal
Among the people, and his lore perchance
The earth-bowed worldling with his scales of gold
Accounteth folly. Yet to him is raised
Each straining eye-ball, "Tell us of the Christ!"
And like the far off murmur of the sea
Lashed by the tempest, swelled their blended tone,
"Sir, —we would hear of Christ. Give us a scroll
Bearing his name."
 And there that teacher stood,
Far from his native land,—amid the graves
Of his lost infants, and of her he loved
More than his life,—yes, there he stood alone,
And with a simple, saint-like eloquence
Spake his Redeemer's word. Forgot was all—
Home, boyhood, christian-fellowship—the tone
Of his sweet babes—his partner's dying strife—
Chains, perils, Burman dungeons, all forgot,
Save the deep danger of the heathen's soul,
And God's salvation. And methought that earth
In all she vaunts of majesty, or tricks
With silk and purple, or the baubled pride
Of throne and sceptre, or the blood-red pomp,
Of the stern hero, had not aught to boast
So truly great, so touching, so sublime,
As that lone Missionary, shaking off
All links and films and trappings of the world,
And in his chastened nakedness of soul
Rising to bear the embassy of Heaven.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/To the Memory of a Young Lady

TO THE MEMORY OF A YOUNG LADY.
Brilliant and beautiful!—And can it be
That in thy radiant eye there dwells no light—
Upon thy cheek no smile?—I little deemed
At our last parting, when thy cheering voice
Breathed the soul's harmony, what shadowy form
Then rose between us, and with icy dart
Wrote, "Ye shall meet no more." I little deemed
That thy elastic step, Death's darkened vale
Would tread before me.
 Friend! I shrink to say
Farewell to thee. In youth's unclouded morn
We gaze on friendship as a graceful flower,
And win it for our pleasure, or our pride.
But when the stern realities of life
Do clip the wings of fancy, and cold storms
Rack the worn cordage of the heart, it breathes
A healing essence, and a strengthening charm,
Next to the hope of heaven. Such was thy love,
Departed and deplored. Talents were thine
Lofty and bright, the subtle shaft of wit,
And that keen glance of intellect which reads,
Intuitive, the deep and mazy springs
Of human action. Yet such meek regard
For other's feelings, such a simple grace
And singleness of purpose, such respect
To woman's noiseless duties sweetly blent,
And tempered those high gifts, that every heart
That feared their splendour, loved their goodness too.
I see thy home of birth. Its pleasant halls
Put on the garb of mourning. Sad and lone
Are they who nursed thy virtues, and beheld
Their bright expansion through each ripening year.
To them the sacred name of daughter blent
All images of comforter and friend,
The fire-side charmer, and the nurse of pain,
Eyes to the blind, and, to the weary, wings.
What shall console their sorrow, when young morn
Upriseth in its beauty, but no smile
Of filial love doth mark it?—or when eve
Sinks down in silence, and that tuneful tone,
So long the treasure of their listening heart,
Uttereth no music?
 Ah!—so frail are we—
So like the brief ephemeron that wheels
Its momentary round, we scarce can weep
Our own bereavements, ere we haste to share
The clay with those we mourn. A narrow point
Divides our grief-sob from our pang of death;
Down to the mouldering multitude we go,
And all our anxious thoughts, our fevered hopes,
The sorrowing burdens of our pilgrimage
In deep oblivion rest. Then let the woes
And joys of earth be to the deathless soul
Like the swept dew-drop from the eagle's wing
When waking in his strength, he sunward soars.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/To a Dying Infant

TO A DYING INFANT.
Go to thy rest, my child!
 Go to thy dreamless bed,
Gentle and undefiled,
 With blessings on thy head;
Fresh roses in thy hand,
 Buds on thy pillow laid,
Haste from this fearful land,
 Where flowers so quickly fade.
Before thy heart might learn
 In waywardness to stray,
Before thy feet could turn
 The dark and downward way;
Ere sin might wound the breast,
 Or sorrow wake the tear,
Rise to thy home of rest,
 In yon celestial sphere.
Because thy smile was fair,
 Thy lip and eye so bright,
Because thy cradle-care
 Was such a fond delight,
Shall Love with weak embrace
 Thy heavenward flight detain?
No! Angel, seek thy place
 Amid yon cherub-train.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/The Coral Insect

THE CORAL INSECT.
Toil on! toil on! ye ephemeral train,
Who build on the tossing and treacherous main;
Toil on, for the wisdom of man ye mock,
With your sand-based structures and domes of rock,
Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,
And your arches spring up through the crested wave; Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear
A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear.
Ye bind the deep with your secret zone,
The ocean is sealed, and the surge a stone,
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king,
The turf looks green where the breakers rolled,
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold,
The sea-snatched isle is the home of men,
And mountains exult where the wave hath been.
But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark? There are snares enough on the tented field,
'Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield,
There are serpents to coil ere the flowers are up,
There's a poison-drop in man's purest cup,
There are foes that watch for his cradle-breath,
And why need ye sow the floods with death?
With mouldering bones the deeps are white,
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright,
The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold,
With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold,
And the gods of ocean have frowned to see
The mariner's bed 'mid their halls of glee; Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread
The boundless sea with the thronging dead?
Ye build! ye build! but ye enter not in;
Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin,
From the land of promise, ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your wearied eye. As the cloud-crowned pyramids' founders sleep
Noteless and lost in oblivion deep,
Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate main,
While the wonder and pride of your works remain.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/To the Ocean

TO THE OCEAN.
Hail, glorious Ocean! In thy calm repose
Majestic like a king. The emerald isles
Sleep on thy breast, as though with matron care
Thou in a robe of light didst cradle them,
Hushing the gales that might disturb their rest.
Those chastened waves that in rotation throng
To kiss their chain of sand, methinks they seem
Like pensive teachers, or like eloquent types
Of the brief tenure of terrestrial joy.
Though roused to sudden anger, thou dost change
Thy countenance, and armed with terror, toss
Man's floating castles to the fiery skies:
Yet still thou art his friend. Thy mystic spell
Looseneth the tie of kindred, lures his feet
From earth's green pastures to the slippery shrouds,
Weans his bold spirit from the parent hearth,
Till by the rough and perilous baptism bronzed,
Thou art his priest, his home.
 With toil and change
Creation labours. Streams their beds forsake,
Strong mountains moulder—the eternal hills
Leap from their firm foundations—planets fall;
But age thy fearful forehead furroweth not.
Earth's bosom bleeds beneath her warring sons,
The tempest scathes her with a foot of flame,
And her bloom withers; but what eye may trace
Where haughtiest navies poured their hostile wrath
Into thy breast, or the storm-spirit dashed
Thy salt tears to the sky? What hand hath reared
Upon thy ever-heaving pedestal
One monumental fane to those who sleep
Within thy cloistered chambers? Myriads there,
Wrapped in the tangled sea-fan's gorgeous shroud,
On thy pearl pavement find their sepulchre.
Earth strictly questioned for these absent ones,
Her beautiful, her brave, her innocent;
But thou, in thy unyielding silence gave
No tidings of them, and despotic bade
Beauty and Death, like rival kings, divide
Thy secret realm.
 Mysterious Deep, farewell!
I turn from thy companionship. But lo,
Thy voice doth follow me. 'Mid lonely bower,
Or twilight dream, or wakeful couch, I hear
That solemn, and reverberated hymn
From thy deep organ which doth speak God's praise
In thunder, night and day.
 Still by my side
Even as a dim seen spirit deign to walk
Prompter of holy thought, and type of Him,
Sleepless, immutable, omnipotent.
# Poems (Sigourney, 1834)/Twilight

TWILIGHT.
I would ye had not glared on me so soon,
Officious lamps!—that gild the parlour scene
With such oppressive brightness.—They were here
Whose garments like the tissue of our dreams
Steal o'er the eye, and win it from the world.
They smiled on me so sweetly, and their hands
Clasped mine, and their calm presence wooed away
The throb of grief so tenderly,—I would
That twilight to the purple peep of dawn
Had kindly lingered.—
 She, who nearest hung,
Pressing my head to her meek, matron breast,
Was one who lulled me to my cradle sleep,
With such blest melodies as memory pours
Fresh from her echo-harp, when the fond heart
Asks for its buried joys.—Slow years have sown
Rank rooted herbage o'er her lowly couch
Since she arose to chant that endless song
Which hath no dissonance.—
 Another form
Sat at her feet, whose brow was bright with bloom
When the cold grave shut o'er it.—It hath left
Its image every where, upon my books,
My bower of musing, and my page of thought,
And the lone altar of the secret soul.—
Would that those lips had spoken!—yet I hear
Always their ring-dove murmuring, when I tread
Our wonted shady haunts.—
Say, is there aught
Like the tried friendship of the sacred dead?
It cannot hide its face, it changeth not,
Grieves not, suspects not, may not fleet away,
For as a seal upon the melted heart
Tis set forever.—Sure 'tis weak to mourn
Though thorns are at the bosom, or the blasts
Of this bleak world beat harshly, if there come
Such angel-visitants at even-tide,
Or midnight's holy hush, to cleanse away
The stains which day hath gathered, and with touch
Pure and ethereal to sublimate
The erring spirit.