Welcome, oh! welcome, that most healing hope,
Pouring abroad an efficacious ray
Into the aching bosom!—­Tidings sweet
Those of such prompt return, with wisdom gain’d
By suffering, but with all thy innocence,
All thy accustomed gaiety of heart,
And all thy deep, quick sensibilities! 
Those gems of virtue, which concentre still
In narrow limits, stores of moral wealth
Beyond all estimate—­whose value known,
The dealer sells his other merchandize;
His ivory and curious workmanship,
The silkworm’s product and the cloth of gold,
To purchase that imperishable store,
More highly prized than all!—­Possessing all
The properties, most precious of the rest,
In a superior measure and degree,
Without alloy, sparkling with inward light! 
Unseen, untraced the process of his growth!—­
No aid from any human hand or care!—–­
No nourishment from any earthly dews! 
No ripening from our bright, material sun! 
But secretly supplied by Providence
With some more pure, diviner aliment,
And with more heavenly, searching radiance fill’d;
For the superior comfort, higher bliss
Of that in-drinking eye the soul of man!

Thus sang I, when fallacious hopes were rais’d
Of his dear safety—­whom, howe’er belov’d—­
However strong in health, and firmly built
Like a fine statue of the antique world,
As if he might have reach’d a century
Without decrepitude, we ne’er again—­
Nor we alone, no other human eye—­
Can e’er behold!  Then had I painted him
Returning, as he lately left our shores,
With all the fairness and the bloom of youth—­
The light brown hair, and its soft yellow gleams,
Brightened with silver; thickening into shade,
Now with a dove-like, now a chesnut hue! 
The smile of Peace and Love and joyful Hope! 
And those blue eyes, through whose dark lash the soul,
Rejoicing, from its kind and happy home,
Look’d forth with rapture, artless, and uncheck’d! 
Eyes, where Delight in careless luxury
Lay nestling and indulging blissful thoughts;
With every day-dream, for whose food the world
Offers magnificence and loveliness;
All graceful motions, and all graceful forms. 
The ripened nectar of delicious sounds,
The social haunt—­the lonely quiet hour;
The Hopes embodying innocent and gay
As those of Childhood, whose soft footstep past
Not long before, not yet forgotten, by!

The letter, dearest, blotted with thy tears,
In answer to a caution—­fear—­express’d
By much too strongly—­often gives my heart
A secret pang—­but of remorse for nought
But paining thee—­too tender to endure
The thought that self-indulgence, or neglect,
Causing increas’d disquietude and care,
Might, by increased disquietude and care,
Open the grave for him who gave thee birth! 
How often and how warmly did’st thou ask,
With epithets of fondness, how I dar’d