Upham,[82] 1799-1873._=
=_360._= ON A SON LOST AT SEA.
Boy of my earlier days and hopes! Once more,
Dear child of memory, of love, of tears!
I see thee, as I saw in days of yore,
As in thy young, and in thy lovely, years.
The same in youthful look, the same in form;
The same the gentle voice I used to hear;
Though many a year hath passed, and many a storm
Hath dashed its foam around thy cruel bier.
Deep in the stormy ocean's hidden cave
Buried, and lost to human care and sight,
What power hath interposed to rend thy grave?
What arm hath brought thee thus to life and light?
I weep,--the tears my aged cheek that stain,
The throbs that once more swell my aching breast,
Embodying one of anxious thought and pain,
That wept and watched around that place of rest.
O leave me not, my child! Or, if it be,
That coming thus, thou canst not longer stay,
Yet shall this kindly visit's mystery
Give rise to hopes that never can decay.
Dear cherished image from thy stormy bed!
Child of my early woe, and early joy!
'Tis thus at last the sea shall yield her dead,
And give again my loved, my buried boy.
[Footnote 82: A philosophical and religious writer of much merit and
earnestness; author of a volume of poems; for a long time professor
of moral and mental philosophy in Bowdoin College.
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