I am lucky enough to have in my personal library a book entitled ‘The Mourner’s Friend or Sighs of Sympathy For Those Who Sorrow’. It is a collection of prose and verse compiled to give comfort to the grieving. Edited by J.B. Syme, published in 1852 by S.A. Howland in Worcester, Mass, USA; its contents are by American and European authors and some surprising famous names. My copy of the book has some water damage, ageing paper, and precarious binding, so before it deteriorates my project to preserve the words of the authors will find its way here on the MOLAM blog.
Amelia B. Welby (1819 – 1852) was an American poet who published two collections of poems (1844 and 1850) and contributed to the Louisville Daily Journal. She died at the age of 33, soon after the death of her only child.
“I WEEP NOT”. By Mrs. Amelia B. Welby.
I WEEP not as I wept,
When first they laid thee low ;
My sorrow all too deep is kept
To melt like common woe.
My sorrow all too deep is kept
To melt like common woe.
Nor do my lips e’er part
With whispers of thy name,
but thou art shrined in this hushed heart,
And that is all the same.
I could be happy now,
Had memory flown with thee,
But still I hear a whisper low,
And memory will not flee ;
A whisper that doth tell
Of thee, and thee alone ;
A memory, like the ocean shell,
Forever making moan.
For how can I forget
Thine eye of softest brown,
With its pale lids, just touched with jet
And always drooping down ;
And thy sweet form of grace,
That went to rest so soon,
And the turning up of thy sweet face
Beneath the placid moon !
I sometimes think thy hand
Is on my forehead prest,
And almost feel thy tresses, fanned
Across my beating breast ;
And catch the sunny flow
Of thy mantle on the air,
And turn to see if it is so, -
Alas ! thou art not there !
And I wander out alone
Beside the singing rills
When nothing but the wind’s low tone
Come stealing down the hills ;
And while along the deep
The moonbeams softly shine,
My silent soul goes forth to keep
Its blessed tryst with thine.
I weep not, though thou art laid
In such a lone, dark place,
Thou, who didst live without a shade
To cloud thy sweet young face ;
For now thy spirit sings
Where angels once have trod,
Veiling their faces ‘neath their wings
Around the throne of God !
They faults were slight, and few
As human faults could be,
And thy virtues were as many too
As gems beneath the sea ;
And thy thoughts did heavenward roam
Until, like links of gold,
They drew thee up to thy blue home
Within the Saviour’s fold.
Amelia B. Welby
