Classic Poem

WRITTEN ON LEAVING A PLACE WHERE THE AUTHOR HAD RESIDED SEVERAL YEARS .

I did not think to leave this land
Would cost one pang, a single sigh;
But while I wave my parting hand,
Tears, burning tears, suffuse mine eye:
I go where ocean's dark blue waves,
By tempests lash'd, are swelling high;
But memory lingers o'er the graves
Where kindred relics mouldering lie.

'Twas here I followed to the tomb,
With breaking heart, two sisters dear;
Eliza, too, in virgin bloom,
Was snatch'd away, and buried here.
When I'm afar upon the ocean,
Where mountain waves their crests uprear,
Oft must I sigh with deep emotion,
As memory bids their forms appear.

Why did thy cold hand, ruthless Death!
Alone the brow of beauty shade?
Why steal the infant's baliny breath,
Ere sin one single stain had made?
Thine icy touch hath chill'd to rest
Two tender flowers that bloom'd to fade;
On my lov'd sister's stirless breast,
In one cold grave, those flow'rs are laid!

I have not number'd twenty years;
Yet oft at sorrow's shrine I've bow'd,
To shed the offering of my tears,
And kiss affliction's chastening rod.
Lov'd, blighted lost ones! low ye lie
Where prairie wild-flow'rs dress the sod;
Your sinless souls have flown on high,
To dwell forever with their God.

I go to brave the ocean's storms —
But memory oft at starry even,
Will call to view those blighted forms,
While on our trackless course we're driven:
And still the tear of deep regret
To worth like theirs must e'er be given:
Affection mourns their absence yet,
Though angels now, their home is heaven.