2.
With dim, deep
sunken eye,
Crutch’d on his staff,
who trembles tottering by?
As wrung from out the shatter’d
heart, one groan
Breaks the deep
hush alone!
Crush’d by the iron
Fate, he seems to gather
All life’s
last strength to stagger to the bier,
And hearken——Do
those cold lips murmur “Father?”
The sharp rain,
drizzling through that place of fear,
Pierces the bones gnaw’d
fleshless by despair,
And the heart’s horror
stirs the silver hair.
3.
Fresh bleed the fiery wounds
Through all that
agonizing heart undone—
Still on the voiceless lips
“my Father” sounds,
And still the
childless Father murmurs “Son!”
Ice-cold—ice-cold,
in that white shroud he lies—
Thy sweet and
golden dreams all vanish’d there—
The sweet and golden name
of “Father” dies
Into thy curse,—ice-cold—ice-cold—he
lies
Dead,
what thy life’s delight and Eden were!
4.
Mild, as when, fresh from
the arms of Aurora,
When the air like
Elysium is smiling above,
Steep’d in rose-breathing
odours, the darling of Flora
Wantons over the
blooms on his winglets of love.—
So gay, o’er the meads,
went his footsteps in bliss,
The silver wave
mirror’d the smile of his face;
Delight, like a flame, kindled
up at his kiss,
And the heart
of the maid was the prey of his chase.
5.
Boldly he sprang to the strife
of the world,
As a deer to the
mountain-top carelessly springs;
As an eagle whose plumes to
the sun are unfurl’d,
Swept his Hope
round the Heaven on its limitless wings.
Proud as a war-horse that
chafes at the rein,
That kingly exults
in the storm of the brave;
That throws to the wind the
wild stream of its mane,
Strode he forth
by the prince and the slave!
6.
Life, like a spring-day, serene
and divine,
In the star of
the morning went by as a trance;
His murmurs he drown’d
in the gold of the wine,
And his sorrows
were borne on the wave of the dance.
Worlds lay conceal’d
in the hopes of his youth,
When once he shall
ripen to manhood and fame!
Fond Father exult!—In
the germs of his youth
What harvests
are destined for Manhood and Fame!
7.
Not to be was that Manhood!—The
death-bell is knelling
The hinge of the
death-vault creaks harsh on the ears—
How dismal, O Death, is the
place of thy dwelling!
Not to be was
that Manhood!—Flow on bitter tears!
Go, beloved, thy path to the
sun,
Rise, world upon
world, with the perfect to rest;
Go—quaff the delight
which thy spirit has won,
And escape from
our grief in the halls of the blest.