IS there a spot where Pity's foot, <br />Although unsandalled, fears to tread, <br />A silence where her voice is mute, <br />Where tears, and only tears, are shed? <br />It is the desolated home <br />Where Hope was yet a recent guest, <br />Where Hope again may never come, <br />Or come, and only speak of rest. <br /> <br />They gave my hand the pictured scroll, <br />And bade me only fancy there <br />A parent's agony of soul, <br />A parent's long and last despair; <br />The sunshine on the sudden wave, <br />Which closed above the youthful head, <br />Mocking the green and quiet grave, <br />Which waits the time-appointed dead. <br /> <br />I thought upon the lone fire-side, <br />Begirt with all familiar thought, <br />The future, where a father's pride <br />So much from present promise wrought: <br />The sweet anxiety of fears, <br />Anxious from love's excess alone, <br />The fond reliance upon years <br />More precious to us than our own: <br /> <br />All past—then weeping words there came <br />From out a still and darkened room, <br />They could not bear to name a name <br />Written so newly on the tomb. <br />They said he was so good and kind, <br />The voices sank, the eyes grew dim; <br />So much of love he left behind, <br />So much of life had died with him. <br /> <br />Ah, pity for the long beloved, <br />Ah, pity for the early dead; <br />The young, the promising, removed <br />Ere life a light or leaf had shed. <br />Nay, rather pity those whose doom <br />It is to wait and weep behind, <br />The father, who within the tomb <br />Sees all life held most dear enshrined.<br /><br />Letitia Elizabeth Landon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-olinthus-gregory-on-hearing-of-the-death-of-his-eldest-son-who-was-drowned-as-he-was-returning-by-water-to-his-father-s-house-at-woolrich/
