Classic Poem

ON A DOMESTIC CALAMITY .

Now is all love shut from me; — I am left,
Like the scathed pine upon the mountain's brow,
Withered and branchless — The last verdant bough,
That, 'mid the blight, put forth its freshening hues,
Hath felt the lightning's wrath; — my all is reft,
And I must wend me through life's vale of woe
In solitude and tears: — well, be it so! —
Yet these sweet thoughts shall soothe me, and diffuse
A healing balm upon my suffering soul: —
That I have been most happy, though so brief
Were my young days of gladness — that my grief
Was not of mine own planting, but the sole
Endowment of misfortune; — and that bliss
May bloom, from sorrow's seeds, in brighter realms than this.