Dedication. To my mother
The flowers of romance that I cherished,
Around me lie withered and dead;
The stars of my youth's shining heaven,
Were but meteors whose brightness misled;
And the day-dreams of life's vernal morning,
Like the mists of the morning have fled.
But one flower I have found still unwithered;
Like the night-scented jasmin it gleams;
And beyond where the fallen stars vanished,
One light pure and hallowed still beams;
One love I have found, deep and changeless,
As that I have yearned for in dreams.
Too often the links have been broken,
That bound me in friendship's bright chain;
Too often has fancy deceived me
To blind or to charm me again;
And I sigh o'er my young heart's illusions,
With a sorrow I would were disdain.
But now, as the clouds return earthward,
From the cold and void ether above;
As on pinions all drooping and weary,
O'er the waste flew the wandering dove;
O'er the tide of the world's troubled waters,
I return to the ark of thy love.
Here, at length, my tired spirit reposes;
Here my heart's strongest tendrils entwine;
Here its warmest and deepest affections
It lays on earth's holiest shrine:
Dearest mother, receive the devotion
Of the life thou hast given from thine.
Here, pressed to thy bosom, the tempests
That sweep over life's stormy sea,
Have beat, in their impotent fury,---
They were winged with no terror for me;
If I shrank from the fearful encounter,
If I trembled---it was but for thee.
The spirit of Song that lies buried
In silence or sleep in the breast,
Unlike the wild music of Memnon,
Is charmed by the sunshine to rest;
In the clash of contending emotions
Are its harmonies only expressed.
When, at moments, my soul has been shaken,
[...] Read more
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
