Lucretia Maria Davidson

The Sick-Bed

  (Written in her fifteenth year)

O have you watched beside the bed,
Where rests the weary, aching head?
And have you heard the long, deep groan,
The low-said prayer, in half-breathed tone?

O have you seen the fevered sleep,
Which speaks of agony within?
The eye which would, but cannot weep,
And wipe away the stains of sin?

O have you marked the struggling breath,
Which would but cannot leave its clay?.
And have you marked the hand of death
Unbind, and bid it haste away?

Then thou hast seen what thou shalt feel;
Then thou hast read thy future doom;
O pause, one moment, o'er death's seal,
There's no repentance in the tomb.