Does pleasant spring return once
more?
Does earth her happy youth
regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining
oer;
Soft brooklets burst their
icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river
Laughs down an all-unclouded
day,
The winged west winds gently quiver,
The buds are bursting from
the spray;
While birds are blithe on every
tree;
The Oread from the mountain-shore
Sighs, Lo! thy flowers come
back to thee-
Thy child, sad mother, comes
no more!
Alas! how long an age it seems
Since all the earth I wandered
over,
And vainly, Titan, tasked thy beams
The loved-the lost
one-to discover!
Though all may seek-yet
none can call
Her tender presence back to
me
The sun, with eyes detecting all,
Is blind one vanished form
to see.
Hast thou, O Zeus! hast thou away
From these sad arms my daughter
torn?
Has Pluto, from the realms of day,
Enamored-to dark
rivers borne?
Who to the dismal phantom-strand
The herald of my grief will
venture?
The boat forever leaves the land,
But only shadows there may
enter.-
Veiled from each holier eye repose
The realms where midnight
wraps the dead,
And, while the Stygian river flows,
No living footstep there may
tread!
A thousand pathways wind the drear
Descent;-none upward
lead to-day;-
No witness to the mothers
ear
The daughters sorrows
can betray.
Mothers of happy human clay
Can share at least their childrens
doom;
And when the loved ones pass away,
Can track-can join
them-in the tomb!
The race alone of heavenly birth
Are banished from the darksome
portals;
The Fates have mercy on the earth,
And death is only kind to
mortals!
Oh, plunge me in the night of nights,
From heavens ambrosial
halls exiled!
Oh, let the goddess lose the rights
That shut the mother from
the child!
Where sits the dark kings
joyless bride,
Where midst the dead her home
is made;
Oh that my noiseless steps might
glide,
Amidst the shades, myself
a shade!
I see her eyes, that search through
tears,
In vain the golden light to
greet;
That yearn for yonder distant spheres,
That pine the mothers
face to meet!
Till some bright moment shall renew
The severed hearts
familiar ties;
And softened pity steal in dew,
From Plutos slow-relenting
eyes!
Ah, vain the wish, the sorrows are!
Calm in the changeless paths
above
Rolls on the day-gods golden
car-
Fast are the fixed decrees
of Jove!
Far from the ever-gloomy plain,
He turns his blissful looks
away.
Alas! night never gives again
What once it seizes as its
prey!
Till over Lethes sullen swell,
Auroras rosy hues shall
glow;
And arching through the midmost
hell
Shine forth the lovely Iris-bow!
And is there naught of her; no token-
No pledge from that beloved
hand?
To tell how love remains unbroken,
How far soever be the land?
Has love no link, no lightest thread,
The mother to the child to
bind?
Between the living and the dead,
Can hope no holy compact find?
No! every bond is not yet riven;
We are not yet divided wholly;
To us the eternal powers have given
A symbol language, sweet and
holy.
When Springs fair children
pass away,
When, in the north winds
icy air,
The leaf and flower alike decay,
And leave the rivelled branches
bare,
Then from Vertumnus lavish
horn
I take lifes seeds
to strew below-
And bid the gold that germs the
corn
An offering to the Styx to
go!
Sad in the earth the seeds I lay-
Laid at thy heart, my child-to
be
The mournful tokens which convey
My sorrow and my love to thee!
But, when the hours, in measured
dance,
The happy smile of spring
restore,
Rife in the sun-gods golden
glance
The buried dead revive once
more!
The germs that perished to thine
eyes,
Within the cold breast of
the earth,
Spring up to bloom in gentler skies,
The brighter for the second
birth!
The stem its blossom rears above-
Its roots in nights
dark womb repose-
The plant but by the equal love
Of light and darkness fostered-grows!
If half with death the germs may
sleep,
Yet half with life they share
the beams;
My heralds from the dreary deep,
Soft voices from the solemn
streams,-
Like her, so them, awhile entombs,
Stern Orcus, in his dismal
reign,
Yet spring sends forth their tender
blooms
With such sweet messages again,
To tell,-how far from
light above,
Where only mournful shadows
meet,
Memory is still alive to love,
And still the faithful heart
can beat!
Joy to ye children of the field!
Whose life each coming year
renews,
To your sweet cups the heaven shall
yield
The purest of its nectar-dews!
Steeped in the lights resplendent
streams,
The hues that streak the Iris-bow
Shall trim your blooms as with the
beams
The looks of young Aurora
know.
The budding life of happy spring,
The yellow autumns
faded leaf,
Alike to gentle hearts shall bring
The symbols of my joy and
grief.
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