Remember the Lady in the account of "A Republic if you can keep it [a secret]?"
It's quite a sad story about her 4 lost children, the boys both having been named Sam. That made her poem have a dual application right from the start.
I read her beautiful poem today, and I thought her tears must have been for a future good cause that she could have never imagined. She was meant to be a prophetess:
"On a piece of black lined paper, Powel wrote of one of her sons:"
Beneath his Hillocks narrow bound
A lovely Infant lies,
Till the last Trumpet shakes the Ground
And rolls away the Skies
From all the Chequer'd Ills below
Sammy secure shall sleep
His little Heart no Pain shall know,
His Eyes no more shall weep.
Some pitying Angel view'd the Lamb
In Innocence array'd
And snach'd him from each future Snare
The World and guile had laid
When Thousands rising from the Dust
Shall tremble as they rise,
This smiling Saint, without Distrust
Shall upward lift his Eyes.
***
Oh my.
One of my favorite places on the planet is the Rockingham [VT] Meeting House Cemetery. It is so serene and butally sad. It's remarkable, to me, for the large number of children buried there.
Brings home how lucky we are, to have the medical care that didn't exist in the 18th C.
I love R. Frost
On my *bucket list* is to make some gravestone rubbings there.