Martha Gilbert's Commonplace Book - page 7

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The Orphan's smile. Mrs Selia/Sara[?] Smith

One smile passed o'er her sunken cheek -
It told far more than life may speak
'Twas griefs own poetry, touching cords
That had never woke to the sound of words
But glimmered there with a light as bone
As the moon's pale ray on a marble stone.

Love from the green Earth for her dead gone
And left her love as a star at morn,
Whose sister lights [?] [?] set
As dawning smiles night shadows met;
There was nothing left to smile for her
And make the [?] [?] lovelier.

Have you ever dreamed of an icy isle,
Where summer sun beams never smile,
Lovely and far in the northern dial,
And rudely swept by the chilling breeze!
'Twas thus life's waters moved her on,
A chilled, a sad, a stricken one.

She was beautiful, for beauty's flowers,
Bloom not alone in the sunniest bowers,
They love to gather around those who grieve,