The Perfected Union

by Lydia Howard Sigourney

The world is poorer when just souls depart,
They leave it darkened.

Faithful Spring remands
From wintry wastes her buried treasures back,
And bids the drooping shrub and leafless tree
Again replenish their collapsing veins
With fresh life-blood.

But the warm, beating heart
Of human sympathy, the mind enriched
With stores of knowledge, won by studious toil,
The noble form that tower'd in manhood's grace,
These, from the tomb return to earth no more --
No more.

The wandering bird may find again
Her long-forsaken nest, and wildly pour
The accustom'd strain; but man's unconscious ear,
That lingering listen'd to the melody,
Heeds not the carol from its sepulchre.

Yet thou for whom we mourn, art gather'd home;
The gentle hand of Love did beckon thee
To blest society. Thou heard'st a voice
In thy lone chamber, that we might not hear,
Wooing thee upward. So, thy step was swift
In the bright pathway of that bosom friend
Who knew no higher joy than o'er thy heart
To throw a shield from earth's adversity,
Or with the magic of the Eolian harp,
Transform the blast to music.

Now her watch
O'er thee is ended; and though we lament
No more to greet thee, with thy chasten'd smile,
Clear-minded, eloquent in speech and thought,
And full of zeal for truth; yet well we know
Thou art at rest with her.

'T is well with both.