08.07.2007, 10:29
Tributary Sonnet
To my friend, the Rev. Walter Colton, author of "Deck and Port" and "Three Years in California," who died, having been long absent from home, shortly after rejoining his family. (Harper's Monthly, 1853)
Heart, that with warm and generous feeling beat--
How strange it seems to one who loved thee well,
That over thee has pealed the solemn knell,
And not one spark of all that genial heat
Remains each high-born sympathy to greet,
And glow with fond affection, when some word
Uttered in tone harmonious, low, and sweet,
Thy fervent depths to kind emotions stirred!
Alas--that thou, when life was doubly dear,
When once more reunited to thine own,
After such weary years of absence flown,
Should'st be translated--though to that bright sphere
On which, in child-like earnestness and faith,
Thy looks were turned beyond the door of death.
To my friend, the Rev. Walter Colton, author of "Deck and Port" and "Three Years in California," who died, having been long absent from home, shortly after rejoining his family. (Harper's Monthly, 1853)
Heart, that with warm and generous feeling beat--
How strange it seems to one who loved thee well,
That over thee has pealed the solemn knell,
And not one spark of all that genial heat
Remains each high-born sympathy to greet,
And glow with fond affection, when some word
Uttered in tone harmonious, low, and sweet,
Thy fervent depths to kind emotions stirred!
Alas--that thou, when life was doubly dear,
When once more reunited to thine own,
After such weary years of absence flown,
Should'st be translated--though to that bright sphere
On which, in child-like earnestness and faith,
Thy looks were turned beyond the door of death.