The Bride (Sigourney)

I came, but she was gone. In her fair home,There lay her lute, just as she touched it last,At summer twilight, when the woodbine cupsFill'd with pure fragrance. On her favourite seatLay the still open work-box, and that bookWhich last she read, its pencil'd margin mark'dBy an ill-quoted passage—trac'd, perchance,With hand unconscious, while her lover spakeThat dialect which brings forgetfulnessOf all beside. It was the cherish'd home,Where from her childhood she had been the starOf hope and joy. I came—and she was gone.Yet I had seen her from the altar led,With silvery veil but slightly swept aside,The fresh, young rose-bud, deepening in her cheek,And on her brow the sweet and solemn thoughtOf one who gives a priceless gift away.And there was silence 'mid the gather'd throng.The stranger, and the hard of heart, did drawTheir breath suppressed, to see the mother's lipTurn ghastly pale, and the majestic sireShrink as with smother'd sorrow, when he gaveHis darling to an untried guardianship,And to a far-off clime. Haply his thoughtTravers'd the grass-grown prairies, and the shoreOf the cold lakes; or those o'erhanging cliffs,And pathless mountain-tops, that rose to barHer log-rear'd mansion from the anxious eyeOf kindred and of friend. Even triflers feltHow strong and beautiful is woman's love.Which, taking in its hand its thornless joys,The tenderest melodies of tuneful years,Yea! and its own life also—lays them allMeek and unblenching, on a mortal's breast,Reserving nought, save that unspoken hopeWhich hath its root in God. Mock not with mirthA scene like this, ye laughter-loving ones;The licens'd jesters lip, the dancer's heel—What do they here? Joy, serious and sublime,Such as doth nerve the energies of prayer,Should swell the bosom, when a maiden's hand,Fill'd with life's dewy flow'rets, girdeth onThat harness which the ministry of deathAlone unlooseth, but whose fearful powerMay stamp the sentence of eternity.