ON THE DEATH OF
MISS ELIZA FARQUHARSON CRUDEN. *

THE ling’ring night that shades the pole,
When winter’s howling tempests roll,
     Is dark, —but darker still
The cloud that hides to-morrow’s skies,
The veil that dipt in shadowy dyes

     The Almighty’s changeless will. [Page 123]

But Hope can bid the coming morn
December’s midnight skies adorn,
     And Faith devoutly own;
Dark as they seem to mortal sight,

Thy paths, oh Lord! are cloudless light,
And Mercy fair, and Justice bright,
     Attendants of thy throne.

Affection’s blossom fondly rear’d,
The fair, the tender flower appear’d;

     Who fear’d the coming blast?
Who, with prognosticating eye,
Could trace the tempest in the sky?
Ere aught had whisper’d danger nigh,
     The hour of Fate was past!. [Page 124]

Yet Faith shall wipe Affection’s tear,
While bending o’er the untimely bier,
     And trust the power divine,
And every sacred promise claim—
Oh! not in vain the promise came!

And early taught the Saviour’s name,
     Thy father’s God was thine.

None can unfold what joys or cares,
Had waited on thy future years,
     But that All-ruling Hand

Amid the deluge, wild and dark,
Who steer’d the life-preserving ark,
Sent forth the storm, and moor’d the bark,
     On Jordan’s farther strand.

Fix’d was the hour, and fix’d the cause,

In God’s irrevocable laws,
     The awful summons given,
Swift as the torrid tempests sweep,
Swift as their light’nings gild the steep,
It came, —it lock’d the dust in sleep,

     And call’d the soul to Heaven. [Page 125]

Ah, then, though Memory love the view,
Though Nature’s tender tears bedew
     The cherub’s early tomb,
Yet say not—“Faded ere her prime;”

Beyond the realms of Death and Time,
The flower adorns a brighter clime,
     Unfolds a richer bloom.

THE END. [Page 126]

* The infant daughter of William Cruden, Esq. of Belleville, Stirlingshire, killed on the road to Aberdeen, near Cupar-Angus, on the 13th of December, 1814. Mr. Cruden conducted the child and his sister to Perth, and handed them into the Union Coach, in which they were the only passengers. The coach had proceeded about a hundred yards from the inn at Cupar, when, passing over a small stone, the child was instantaneously thrown out, the door flying open at the moment, and pitched on the back of her head. When the guard raised her from the ground, she was breathing, but life was gone. Miss Cruden, who had adopted the child as her own, had the affliction to witness the untimely fate of her infant protégé. [back]