The Ruler's Faith

DEATH cometh to the chamber of the sick:The ruler's daughter, like the peasant's child,Turns pale as marble. Hark! that hollow moan,Which none may soothe, and then the last faint breathSubsiding with a shudder.Deep the wailThat speaks an idol fallen from the shrineOf a fond parent's heart. A withered flowerIs there, oh mother, where thy proudest hopeSolaced itself with garlands, and beheldNew buddings every morn.Father, 'tis o'er!That voice is silent which had been thy harp,Quickening thy footsteps nightly toward thy home,Mingling, perchance, an echo all too deepEven with thy temple worship,Should deal with God alone.What stranger-stepBreaketh the trance of grief! Whose radiant browIn meekness and in majesty doth bendBeside the bed of death?"She doth but sleep;The damsel is not dead." A smothered hiss,Contemptuous, rises from that wondering band,Who beat the breast, and raise the license wailOf Judah's mourning.Look upon the dead!Heaves not the winding-sheet? Those trembling lids,What peers beneath their fringes, like the tintOf dewy violet? The blanched lips dispart,And what a quivering long-drawn sigh restoresTheir rose-leaf beauty. Lo! that clay-cold handDoth clasp the Master's, and, with sudden spring,That shrouded sleeper, like a timid fawn,Hides in her mother's bosom. Faith's strong rootWas in the parent's spirit, and its fruitHow beautiful!Oh, mother! who doth gazeUpon thy daughter, in that deeper sleep,Which threats the soul's salvation, breathe her nameTo thy Redeemer's ear, both when she smilesIn all her glowing beauty on the morn,Or when at night her clustering tresses sweepHer downy pillow, in the trance of dreams,Or when at pleasure's beckoning she goes forth,Or to the meshes of an early loveYields her young heart, be eloquent for her,Take no denial, till the gracious hand,Which raised the ruler's dead, give life to her,That better life, whose power surmounts the tomb.