She sleeps!—but not the free and sunny sleep
That lightly on the brow of childhood lies;
Though happy be her rest, and soft, and deep,
Yet, ere it sank upon her shadow’d eyes,
Thoughts of past scenes and kindred graves o’erswept
Her soul’s meek stillness—she had pray’d and wept.
And now in visions to her couch they come,
The early lost—the beautiful—the dead—
That unto her bequeathed a mournful home,
Whence with their voices all sweet laughter fled:
They rise—the sisters of her youth arise,
As from the world where no frail blossom dies.
And well the sleeper knows them not of earth—
Not as they were when binding up the flowers,
Telling wild legends round the winter-hearth,
Braiding their long fair hair for festal hours;—
These things are past;—a spiritual gleam,
A solemn glory, robes them in that dream.
Yet if the glee of life’s fresh budding years
In those pure aspects may no more be read,
Thence, too, hath sorrow melted—and the tears
Which o’er their mother’s holy dust they shed
Are all effaced;—there earth hath left no sign,
Save its deep love, still touching every line:
But oh, more soft, more tender, breathing more
A thought of pity than in vanish’d days;
While hov’ring silently and brightly o’er
The lone one’s head, they meet her spirit’s gaze
With their immortal eyes, that seem to say,
“Yet, sister! yet we love thee—come away!”
’Twill fade, the radiant dream!—and will she not
Wake with more painful yearning at her heart?
Will not her home seem a yet lonelier spot,
Her tasks more sad, when those bright shadows part?
And the green Summer after them look dim,
And Sorrow’s tone be in the birds’ wild hymn?
But let her hope be strong! and let the dead
Visit her soul in Heaven’s calm beauty still!
Be their names utter’d, be their memory spread
Yet round the place they never more may fill!
All is not over with earth’s broken tie—
Where, where should sisters love, if not on high?