TO A CACTUS FLOWER.

  Firstling blossom! gayly spreading
    On a long-nursed household tree,
  What unwonted spell is shedding
    Thought of grief on bloom of thee?

  For a morning bright and tender
    They had nursed thee glad and fond;
  Nay, the bud reserved its splendor
    For a funeral scene beyond.

  Who shall tell us which were meeter,—­
    Marriage morn, or funeral day? 
  What if nature chose the sweeter,
    Where her blooming gift to lay?

  Set in thorns that flower so tender! 
    Marriage days have poignant hours;
  Thorny stem, thou hast thy splendor! 
    Funeral days have also flowers.

  And the loftiest hopes man nurses,
    Never deem them idly born;
  Never think that deathly curses
    Blight them on a funeral morn.

  Buds of their perennial nature
    Need a region where to blow,
  Where the stalk has loftier stature
    Than it reaches here below.

Not like us they dread the bosom
Of chill earth’s sepulchral gloom;
They will find them where to blossom,
And perhaps select a tomb.

Yes, a tomb; so thou mayst deem it,
With regretful feelings fond;
Not a tomb, however, seems it,
If thou know’st to look beyond.

10th of 7th Month, 1847.

8th Mo. 8th.  We alone.  Pleasant and quiet schemes have arisen (partly from reading Pyecroft, partly from having felt so much my own deficiencies) for thoroughly industrious study, and for keeping, if possible, externals and mentals in more order.  Order, I believe, would enable me to do much more than I do in this way, without lessening those little “good works” which my natural, unsanctified conscience requires as a sedative; (alas that this is so nearly all!) but I have got such an impression of selfishness in sitting down to read to myself, that this, added to unsettlement from company, etc., almost puts study out of sight.

  8th Mo. 16th.  Letter to M.B.

* * * Though not only inability for, but even natural repugnance to good thoughts is often a prominent feeling, let us not think this a “discouraging experience.”  What will be discouraged by it, except that self-confidence and self-reliance which are the bane, the very opposite, to the idea of faith?  Surely it is for want of such a feeling, and not because of it, that faith is feeble.  It is because we try to make those good thoughts and holy feelings of which Thomas Charles says so truly, “we are no more capable than we are of creating worlds.”  I hope I do not presume too much in writing thus.  How little can I say of the blessings of a contrary state!  But how much would my heart’s history tell of the exceeding vanity and folly, and may I not add presumption, of attempting to do what Divine grace alone can do!  How many a