My Brother. Poem by Fidelia S T Hill

The lapse of years hath not yet parted thee
From our most dear remembrance, shrin'd in thought
Thou reignest o'er a melancholy waste
Of painful recollection. — Brother dear,
Thou wast a pale and contemplative boy,
Health had no roses for thy sallow cheek,
And joy illumined not thine auburn eye,
Nor graced thy perfect features, yet it seem'd
That in thy pensiveness there was a charm
That won the gazer's heart. Mysterious fate
Which from a widowed parent's fond embrace,
Whose latest hope thou wert, didst onward bear
Thee to this foreign land, to meet thy doom: —
And I have seen thy grave and gather'd thence
Even from the mould above thee, a wild flower
As fragile as thou wert, but not so fair;
'We sorrow not, as those who have no hope'
For we believe that thou art gone where pain,
Mischance, and misery can never come,
Thy youth was given to God, and He who gave
Soon, soon recalled thy being, to bestow
The blest inheritance of all His Saints
A crown, — a kingdom of unfading joy.
At Rio de Janeiro, In Harbour, H. M. S. Buffalo