Where is the
mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a
blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is
the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents,
though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony,
would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb
is closing upon the remains of her he most loved; when he feels his
heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal; would
accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness?- No, the
love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the
soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the
overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of
recollection; when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over
the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into
pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness-
who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may
sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or
spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange
it even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No, there
is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song.
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