And Art Thou Gone So Soon?   Articles       John Harris       JH & Longfellow
John Harris: Poems to Lucretia
 
 
Much of the best of John Harris's poetry is elegiac. Early death was common  among
 miners and infant mortality was high. The following poems lament the abrupt
 death of Harris's favourite daughter, Lucretia, who died at Christmas -tide,
 1855. They are among the most affecting that he ever wrote. The refrain "I miss
 thee . . ." followed by the itemisation of the many places he delighted in sharing with
 her is like a grief-stricken mind revolving around its point of pain and compares
 with the finest elegies of the Victorian period. A selection of John Harris's poems is 
appended to my biography, The Meads of Love. Also there is available an exciting 
new selection by David Everett advertised on the Camborne website.
On the Death of my Daughter Lucretia 
(who died December 23rd, aged six years and five months)
 
And art thou gone so soon?
And is thy loving gentle spirit fled?
Ah! is my fair, my passing beautiful,
My loved Lucretia numbered with the dead?
Ah! art thou gone so soon?
 
I miss thee, daughter, now,
In the dear nooks of earth we oft have trod
And a strange longing fills my yearning soul
To sleep with thee, and be, like thee, with God!
I miss thee, daughter, now.
 
I miss thee at thy books,
Lisping sweet Bible-accents in my ear,
Showing me pictures by the evening lamp,
Beautiful emblems thou didst love so dear:
I miss thee at thy books.
 
I miss thee by the brook,
Where we have wander'd many a summer's day,
And thou wert happy with thy loving sire,
More happy here than at thy simple play:
I miss thee by the brook.
 
I miss thee in the Reenes,
Where we have hasted in the twilight dim
To wake the echoes of the silent dell,
And mark the glow-worm 'neath the hawthorn's limb:
I miss thee in the Reenes.
 
I miss thee on the Hill,
The dear old hill which we have climb'd so oft;
And 0, how very happy we have been
In the still bower of the old heathy croft!
I miss thee on the Hill.
 
I miss thee at day's close,
When from my labour I regain my cot.
And sit down sadly at the supper-board,
Looking for thee, but, ah! I see thee not:
I miss thee at day's close.
 
I miss thee everywhere, -
In my small garden, watching the first flower, -
By the clear fountain, - in thy Sunday-class, -
Running to meet me at the evening-hour:
I miss thee everywhere.
 
Farewell my beautiful!
Thy sinless spirit is with Christ above:
Thou hast escaped the evils of the world:
We have a daughter in the meads of love.
Farewell, my beautiful!
 
When I and little Jane.
Walk hand in hand along the old hill's way,
Shall we not feel thy cherub-presence, love,
Singing our sad psalms in the twilight grey?
I shall soon go to thee.
 
Companion of the bard,
Mid rocks and trees, and hedges ivy-cross'd!
At morn and eve in Nature's presence-cell
We oft have enter'd with our musings lost,
My child, my harp, and I.
 
How thou didst love the flowers,
The mountain-heather and the buds of Spring,
The brooks and birds, the hush of solitude, 
The moon and stars, like some diviner thing,
Beautiful prophetess!

Ah! thou were like a rose,
Dropp'd by an angel on earth's feverish clime,
To bloom full lovely, till December's winds
Blasted thy beauty in its morning prime,
Ere it had half unclosed!  
 
Hush, murmuring spirit, hush! It is the Lord,
He only, who hath given:
And He hath taken - blessed be His name! -
The gem, which fell from paradise, to heaven:
I bow and kiss His rod.
 
 
Lucretia's Grave

'Tis where the tree-tops wave,

And gleam with glory 'neath the summer sun,
And gentle breathings steal among the boughs,
When busy day is done.
 
Tis where a tiny rill
Glides through the silence with a trickling fall:
And ivy leaves, like holy epitaphs,
Are clinging to the wall.
 
'Tis where the grass is green,
And daisy flowers in snowy beauty lie,
And songs from fragrant field and forest screen
Are sweetly gushing by.
 
'Tis where the village church
Among the dews its solemn shadow throws,
When silvery lyrics o'er the dingles float,
At evening's gentle close.
 
'Tis where the weary rest,
And Age and Beauty moulder in decay;
And Hope upon the silent green sward sits,
Watching the slumbering clay.
 
Above it shine the stars,
Around it woods and rocky mountains rise:
0, let it be my silent sepulchre,
When Death has sealed mine eyes!  
 
A Flower Gathered at Evening
Hail, blue-eyed child! At evening mild,
I pluck thee on my native wild.
The gentle wing Of blushing Spring,
Shook thee to the earth, thou dainty thing.
Now with shut eye
Pale dost thou lie
In twilight's dusky arms to die.  
 

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