ONCE more I’ll endeavour to paint,
In language which flows from the heart ,
Those wishes , which make language faint,
Those feelings it cannot impart!
What phrase can my friendship disclose?
What words have the pow’r to reveal
The love, which maternally flows,
Or the exquisite fondness I feel?
By Destiny’s adverse decree,
No longer, Louisa, I prove
The friendship my heart feels to Thee,
Or give daily proofs of my love.
Yet still do my thoughts hourly turn
To the object most dear to my soul:
As well might the needle e’er learn,
To diverge from its magnet the pole.
This day, my Louisa, I find
An additional void at my heart;
Yet this may, perhaps, seem unkind,
When for years we were never apart!
Each year, in succession, I’ve hail’d
The annual return of this day;
And though I, perhaps, may have fail’d
In the poetic style of my lay,
Yet still I have try’d to impart
The feelings which friendship inspir’d;
And the theme coming warm from the heart ,
Louisa has often admir’d!
Will absence , then, make it less dear?
“Ah, no!” my Louisa replies:
Th’ assertion is prov’d by a tear,
Which, I fancy, now falls from her eyes!
The chrystaline drop wipe away;
Ah! let it no longer appear;
As this should for smiles be the day,
And the brightest of all the whole year!
Yet may they be never confin’d
To a day –to a month –or a year!
But always extend to thy mind ,
And illume that susceptible sphere!
Alas! I have known it o’erspread
With affliction’s enveloping gloom;
Henceforth may each sorrow be fled,
And happiness come in their room!
My wishes, Louisa, arise,
And ascend to the mansion of Grace,
Imploring the Lord of the skies
To shed his bright beams on thy face.
(Mary Hopkins Pilkington)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Sadness Poems, Soul Poems, Faces Poems, Friendship Poems, Education Poems, Emotions Poems, Learning Poems, Language PoemsBased on Keywords: enveloping, assertion, additional, diverge, susceptible, maternally