ON READING HER POEM IN 'THE STANDARD.' <br /> <br /> <br />The sweet spring day is glad with music, <br />But through it sounds a sadder strain; <br />The worthiest of our narrowing circle <br />Sings Loring's dirges o'er again. <br /> <br />O woman greatly loved! I join thee <br />In tender memories of our friend; <br />With thee across the awful spaces <br />The greeting of a soul I send! <br /> <br />What cheer hath he? How is it with him? <br />Where lingers he this weary while? <br />Over what pleasant fields of Heaven <br />Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile? <br /> <br />Does he not know our feet are treading <br />The earth hard down on Slavery's grave? <br />That, in our crowning exultations, <br />We miss the charm his presence gave? <br /> <br />Why on this spring air comes no whisper <br />From him to tell us all is well? <br />Why to our flower-time comes no token <br />Of lily and of asphodel? <br /> <br />I feel the unutterable longing, <br />Thy hunger of the heart is mine; <br />I reach and grope for hands in darkness, <br />My ear grows sharp for voice or sign. <br /> <br />Still on the lips of all we question <br />The finger of God's silence lies; <br />Will the lost hands in ours be folded? <br />Will the shut eyelids ever rise? <br /> <br />O friend! no proof beyond this yearning, <br />This outreach of our hearts, we need; <br />God will not mock the hope He giveth, <br />No love He prompts shall vainly plead. <br /> <br />Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, <br />And call our loved ones o'er and o'er; <br />Some day their arms shall close about us, <br />And the old voices speak once more. <br /> <br />No dreary splendors wait our coming <br />Where rapt ghost sits from ghost apart; <br />Homeward we go to Heaven's thanksgiving, <br />The harvest-gathering of the heart.<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-lydia-maria-child/
