Mother's Dream and Other Poems. Gould Hannah Flagg

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      Methought, once more to my wishful eye

      My beautiful boy had come:

      My sorrow was gone, my cheek was dry,

      And gladness around my home.

      I saw the form of my dear, lost child!

      All kindled with life he came;

      And he spake in his own sweet voice, and smiled,

      As soon as I called his name.

      The garb he wore looked heavenly white,

      As the feathery snow comes down,

      And warm, as it shone in the softened light

      That fell from his dazzling crown.

      His eye was bright with a joy serene,

      His cheek with a deathless bloom,

      That only the eye of my soul hath seen,

      When looking beyond the tomb.

      The odors of flowers, from the thornless land

      Where we deem that our blest ones are,

      Seemed borne in his skirts; and his soft right hand

      Was holding a radiant star.

      His feet, unshod, looked tender and fair,

      As the lily’s opening bell,

      Half veiled in a cloud of glory, as there

      Around him, in folds, it fell.

      I asked him how he was clothed anew —

      Who circled his head with light —

      And whence he returned to meet my view

      So calm and heavenly bright.

      I asked him where he had been so long

      Away from his mother’s care —

      Again to sing me his infant song,

      And to kneel by my side in prayer.

      He said, “Sweet mother, the song I sing

      Is not for an earthly ear:

      I touch the harp with a golden string,

      For the hosts of heaven to hear.

      “It was but a gently fleeting breath,

      That severed thy child from thee!

      The fearful shadow, in time, called Death,

      Hath ministered life to me.

      “My voice in an angel choir I lift;

      And high are the notes we raise:

      I hold the sign of a priceless gift,

      And the Giver, who hath our praise.

      “‘The bright and the morning star’ is he,

      Who bringeth eternal day!

      And, mother, he giveth himself to thee,

      To lighten thine earthly way.

      “The race is short to a peaceful goal,

      And He is never afar,

      Who saith of the wise, untiring soul,

      ‘I will give him the morning star!’

      “Thy measure of care for me was filled,

      And pure to its crystal top;

      For Faith, with a steady eye, distilled

      And numbered every drop.

      “While thou wast teaching my lips to move,

      And my heart to rise in prayer,

      I learned the way to a world above;

      The home of thy child is there!

      “The secret prayers, thou didst make for me,

      That only thy God hath known,

      Arose, like sweet incense, holy and free,

      And gathered around his throne.

      “My robe was filled with the perfume sweet

      To shed upon this world’s air,

      As I joyful knelt, at my Saviour’s feet,

      For the glorious crown I wear.

      “In that bright, blissful world of ours,

      The waters of life I drink:

      Behold my feet, as they ’ve pressed the flowers,

      That grow by the fountain’s brink!

      “No thorn is hidden to wound me there;

      There ’s nothing of chill, or blight,

      Or sighing to blend with the balmy air —

      No sorrow – no pain – no night!”

      “No parting?” I asked, with a burst of joy;

      And the lovely illusion broke!

      My rapture had banished my beauteous boy —

      To a shadowy void I spoke.

      But, O! that STAR of the morn still beams

      With light to direct my feet

      Where, when I have done with my earthly dreams,

      The mother and child may meet.

      The sun walked the skies in the splendor of June,

      O’er earth full of promise, and air full of tune;

      The broad azure streams calmly rolled to the deep,

      Whose waves on its breast stirred like babes in their sleep.

      The turf heaved its green to the white vestured flock,

      That fed, or reposed in the shade of the rock;

      The birds sang their songs by their nests in the bowers;

      And the bee hummed with sweets from the fresh opened flowers.

      The humming-bird glittered, and whirred o’er the cell,

      Where her nectar was stored, from the hill to the dell;

      ’Mid the bloom and the perfume, that passed on the breeze,

      From the rose, and the vine, and the fruit-bearing trees.

      It seemed like a gala, when Nature, arrayed

      In festival robes, with her treasures displayed,

      Reflected the smile of her Maker above,

      And offered up hymns of her thanksgiving love.

      And yet, in the bosom of man there were fires

      Fierce, quenchless and fearful – consuming desires

      For right unpossessed, and for lawless domain,

      That burned to the soul, and that flamed to the brain.

      In the streets there was clanging and gleaming of arms;

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