Woodburn.
By Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
Oh, the brow that has never been shaded by care
The rosewreath of pleasure may smilingly wear,
And the heart that is wholly a stranger to gloom,
'Mid the din of existence may fearlessly bloom;
But the one that is blighted by sadness and pain,
And blighted too rudely to blossom again,
When its hold on a reed-like support is resigned.
Nor peace, nor composure, nor solace can find,
Nor strength to submit to the chastening rod,
Save only in stillness alone with its God!
And oh! if a blissful communion with Heaven
To earth-wearied spirits has ever been given,
If the loved and the distant, the lost and the dead,
Who smiled on our pathway a moment, and fled,
Who darkened our sunshine and saddened our mirth,
To prove that the soul has no home upon earth,
Are sent in the night-time of gloom and distress,
As heralds of mercy to comfort and bless,
To place, while the tempest is fearfully loud,
The bright bow of peace on the dark thundercloud,
To whisper of purer and holier ties,
Of a land where the blossom of joy never dies
Such tidings to welcome, oh! where shall we flee,
If not, dearest Woodburn, to silence and thee?
For ah! did the angel of peace over roam,
On an errand of love, from her own hallowed home,
To gladden a sin-blighted world for awhile,
Make the desert rejoice and the wilderness smile,
She has certainly paused in her holy career,
And closed up her pinions delightfully here.
Dear to me are thy shades, when no sound may be heard
Save the soul-soothing strains of thy harmonist bird,
For they seem on the soft wing of quiet to come,
Like celestial melodies luring us home,
Faint breathings from Heaven, to bid us prepare
For peals of ethereal minstrelsy there.
But oh! when day rests on the portals of eve,
As though loath the bright scene of enchantment to leave,
While its drapery of gold, hurried carelessly on,
Fades away, tint by tint, till at last all are gone,
I feel 'tis an emblem of life's little hour,
(Thus perish the hues of hope's loveliest flower),
And I sigh for repose on that heavenly shore
Where the day is eternal, and change is no more.