Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.

By O! May We Not Weep

Samuel H. Jenks (1789–?)

O! MAY we not weep for the loved who have fled

From our presence on earth, though their home be in heaven;

And may not our tears at the grave of the dead,

When flowing in silence and hope, be forgiven?

Shall death seize unheeded the friends of our bosom,

The fairest and mildest in life’s lovely bloom;

And throw them, unmourn’d, like the funeral blossom,

To fade and corrode in the damps of the tomb?

O! may we not sorrow for those who have fled

From our presence on earth, though their home be in heaven;

And may not our tears at the grave of the dead,

When flowing in silence and hope, be forgiven?

Unmoved shall we wake from the dreams we enjoy’d,

And find all our visions by death rudely torn?

Our peace by the sweeping blast rent and destroy’d—

Like brutes shall we brook, or like man shall we mourn?

For, though quietly seal’d in the sepulchre’s slumber,

The forms of our valued companions repose;

E’en though with the spirits of bliss THEY may number,

Yet may we not weep for OUR wasteness and woes?

The forms of our valued companions repose;

Then say not, ye piously stern, that our grief

Should be quench’d in oblivion, or frigidly borne:—

When the mildews of fate blight the young tender leaf,

’T is NATURE’S COMMAND, and MAN’S DUTY, to mourn.