  The idea embodied in the following verses is the subject of an old German legend, intended, perhaps somewhat painfully, to represent a repining and diseased spirit awed by a fearful vision of eventual futurity into a becoming resignation for the early loss of those who might have proved unequal to the temptations of a longer life. A mother mourned her children dead, Two blooming boys, whose opening prime Along her path a light had shed, Now quenched, alas! before its time. She mourned as one who dreamed that here Our home and dwelling place should be; She mourned as if she felt no fear Of earthly sin and misery. Once, in the watches of the night, Before her dim and tearful eye, Beyond the clouds an opening bright Revealed a vision of the sky. There, amid amaranthine bowers, Where God's own glory seemed to shine, She saw, on beds of golden flowers, Her dear departed ones recline. Thence bending down, a pitying smile Their fair illumined features wore: "For us now freed from guilt and guile, O, dearest mother, weep no more!" But still her tears rebellious flow, And still she raves of angry fate, As if, with blind and selfish wo, She grudged her children's blissful state. Again in visions of the night, Sent to impart a sad relief, The matron saw another sight That stayed the torrent of her grief. A youth, by wine to madness stirred, Stood brawling on the midnight street, And as a clash of swords was heard, Sunk lifeless at a rival's feet. New horrors o'er her senses steal; She sees, appearing through the gloom, A hardened outlaw on the wheel, While crowds around applaud his doom. She gazed upon the hapless youth, She gazed upon the hardened man, And dawnings of the dreadful truth To rise upon her soul began. Then thus a voice was heard to say, "What now they are thine eye hath seen: Here, had they not been snatch'd away, See also what they would have been." |
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