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Acadia.
39
Since last he bade farewell to all he loved.
They deemed him dead, and long had ceased to mourn,
Or look, or pray, or hope, for his return;
And all they dared to think the scroll could tell,
Was where, and how, and when, the wand'rer fell.
But when the father's eye, undimmed by age
Had cast one hasty glance upon the page,
And read "Dear Parents," with a burst of joy,
He cried, "'tis from my Boy, my long lost Boy !"
While to each heart a throb of gladness sprung,
And prayers and praises faltered from each tongue.
But from the mother's lips no accents fell,
Though her eye beamed with more than words could tell;
Had she not looked more earthly than the dead,
One might have thought her joyous soul had fled—
And it had fled, on memory's airy wing,
Back to the past, round sacred hours to cling,
While many a feeling which despair had dried,
Rushed to her heart in one impetuous tide,—
In thought, she saw her first born on her breast,
And softly lull'd him to his evening rest,—
In thought, descended on her raptured ear
Those faint, first words, to mother's heart so dear,
While every smile he wore in boyhood's days,
Like magic sprung 'neath mem'ry's backward gaze,
"Till her tranced soul, recall'd from former years,
Was soothed and calm'd by one long burst of tears.
The letter told of much that he had viewed,
In busy crowd, or trackless solitude—
Of joys and perils, hours of bliss and pain,
But still his spirit sighed for home again.
They deemed him dead, and long had ceased to mourn,
Or look, or pray, or hope, for his return;
And all they dared to think the scroll could tell,
Was where, and how, and when, the wand'rer fell.
But when the father's eye, undimmed by age
Had cast one hasty glance upon the page,
And read "Dear Parents," with a burst of joy,
He cried, "'tis from my Boy, my long lost Boy !"
While to each heart a throb of gladness sprung,
And prayers and praises faltered from each tongue.
But from the mother's lips no accents fell,
Though her eye beamed with more than words could tell;
Had she not looked more earthly than the dead,
One might have thought her joyous soul had fled—
And it had fled, on memory's airy wing,
Back to the past, round sacred hours to cling,
While many a feeling which despair had dried,
Rushed to her heart in one impetuous tide,—
In thought, she saw her first born on her breast,
And softly lull'd him to his evening rest,—
In thought, descended on her raptured ear
Those faint, first words, to mother's heart so dear,
While every smile he wore in boyhood's days,
Like magic sprung 'neath mem'ry's backward gaze,
"Till her tranced soul, recall'd from former years,
Was soothed and calm'd by one long burst of tears.
The letter told of much that he had viewed,
In busy crowd, or trackless solitude—
Of joys and perils, hours of bliss and pain,
But still his spirit sighed for home again.