Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1859-03-24
Lines Addressed to a Young Mother
The Penitent,

His earnest supplication, and had wcpt
Hour after hour-for ON his mind, the Past,
With its dark catalogue of sins, came back
Withsquandered hours in ad'ning revels passed.
With golden opportunities misused-
With tastes perverted-intellectual gifts,
Wasted in very wantonness-with hopes
Darkened while yet they shone, and joys that turned
To sorrow in the grasp-with woes and shames
Thronged back upon his mind, in that still hour
When Night had hushed the voices of the Day.
And his soul shuddered at the retrospect: ILL.,
Once he was innocent-no thought OF guile,
Nosinftll wish, no perilOus desire
Dwelt in his heart, the home of happiness.
His was continual gladness-for the JOY
OF a Young spirit, filled with whitest thoughts,
And instinct with love that freely flowed
Forth from gentle nature, might not be
As vet, by forms or fashion curbed.
Yet this youth, innocent child from sin,
Could not see, and hive in this sad world
Forever, free from guilt born of Adams son,
The world had beauties for him. He could not stand
The ebcwderng glare and temptations of this world,
Its vague philosophy, corrupt as vague,
So cunningly unfolded to his vicw,-
It poisoned his mind with evil thoughts-his soul
Staining with foul desires, tll-wo for him.
The world triumphed, and the victim fell
Years spent thus, to those around,
Who loved him for himself, brought wo!
And those who loved him not, his compeers,
in crime, left him when degradation came,
To himself, to battle still with sin,
Or, Welding to the tempter, fall, and leave
His home dcsolate, his soul condemned
Awaked at length, from this bewdering dream
That had enthrallcd his senses, shuddcrlng,
He saw the ruin of his hopes, and shrunk,
Blasted and blighted, overwhelmed with shame,
And anguish stricken, from the gaze of men.
Yet he though room might be found,
In a mothers heart, thought that heart
Was scared and almost broken by his acts,
s.,, ,s.a And that there was One,
Whose love restores the wandering, and forgives
The sorrowing. spirit that returns to Him
Still loved, erring youth not valnly hath
T'hv srpr1icatiOn. voiced
Gone upward to the Father! He whose love
Brought Him in saddest fellowship with grief
Who to Samarias guilty daughter gave
The waters of Eternal Life, and best
The penitent Magdalen, DER his feet
She poured hot tears, and with her golden hair
Dried them again,-whose eye is quick to note
The first relenti1i gs of the obdurate heart,
The starting of the penetential tear
Who bids the weary, burdened with their sin,
Come and partake of rest, and know that peace
Earth's treasures cannot purchase, earths hate
Nor hell's intenser malice, wrest away
Hath marked thy tears,-'mid solitude and night
Poured freely--all thy bitter groanings heard.
Thine earnest cries for pardon-known thy thirst
Intense for purity and Righteousness
And in the fullness of His pardoning grace,
Hath blotted out thy sins and healed thy soul
With free forgiveness!
rs 5l3a ~ So Thus may he live
In free forgiveness, and the blessed hope
OF endless Joys, and Eternal Life.
Till dissolution comes, and the shades of death
Come DER his dimmed eye, and the dropping I'D,
Shuts out this earth forever to wake again,
In triumph round the Fathers throne!
.1l.. & u teGuY HAVEN"
Charles County, Nd, March Sth. 1859.