Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY; AT THE RETREAT FOR THE INSANE, by LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY; AT THE RETREAT FOR THE INSANE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Youth glows upon her blossom'd cheek
Last Line: Weep not as others weep.
Subject(s): Death; Psychiatric Hospitals; Sleep; Youth; Dead, The; Mad Houses; Insane Asylums


Youth glows upon her blossom'd cheek,
Glad beauty in her eye,
And fond affections pure and meek
Her every want supply:
Why doth her glance so wildly rove
Some fancied foe to find?
What dark dregs stir her cup of love?
Go ask the sickening mind!

They bear her where with cheering smile
The hope of healing reigns
For those whom morbid Fancy's wile
In torturing bond constrains;
Where Mercy spreads an angel-wing
To do her Father's will,
And heaven-instructed plucks the sting
From Earth's severest ill.

Yet o'er that sufferer's drooping head
No balm of Gilead stole,
Diseas'd Imagination spread
Dark chaos o'er the soul;
But recollected truths sublime
Still fed Devotion's stream,
And beings from a sinless clime
Blent with her broken dream.

Then came a coffin and a shroud,
And many a bursting sigh,
With shrieks of laughter long and loud,
From those who knew not why;
For she, whom Reason's fickle ray
Oft wilder'd and distress'd
Hush'd in unwonted slumber lay,
A cold and dreamless rest,

Think ye of Heaven! how glorious bright
Will break its vision clear,
On souls that rose from earthly night
All desolate and drear;
So ye who laid that stricken form
Down to its willing sleep,
Snatch'd like a flowret from the storm,
Weep not as others weep.





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