“’It was but yesterday, my child, thy little heart beat high; And I had scorned the warning voice that told me thou must die.’”
When Mr. Webster received the intelligence of his loss, he, for the first time in years, indulged in his early fondness for verse, and wrote a few stanzas which have been preserved, though they were intended to be seen only by those near and dear to him. The prevailing thought is a striking one. Here are the verses:
“The staff on which my years should lean Is broken ere those years come’ o’er me; My funeral rites thou shouldst have seen, But thou art in the tomb before me.
“Thou rear’st to me no filial stone, No parent’s grave with tears beholdest; Thou art my ancestor—my son! And stand’st in Heaven’s account the oldest.
“On earth my lot was soonest cast, Thy generation after mine; Thou hast thy predecessor passed, Earlier eternity is thine.
“I should have set before thine eyes The road to Heaven, and showed it clear; But thou, untaught, spring’st to the skies, And leav’st thy teacher lingering here.
“Sweet seraph, I would learn of thee, And hasten to partake thy bliss! And, oh! to thy world welcome me, As first I welcomed thee to this.”
But a still heavier bereavement was in store, though it was delayed for some years. In the summer of 1827 the health of Mrs. Webster began to fail, and from that time she steadily declined until on the 21st of January, in the following year she died. Of Mr. Webster’s bearing at the funeral, Mr. Ticknor writes: “Mr. Webster came to Mr. George Blake’s in Summer Street, where we saw him both before and after the funeral. He seemed completely broken-hearted. At the funeral, when, with Mr. Paige, I was making some arrangements for the ceremonies, we noticed that Mr. Webster was wearing shoes that were not fit for the wet walking of the day, and I went to him and asked him if he would not ride in one of the carriages. ‘No,’ he said, ‘my children and I must follow their mother to the grave on foot. I could swim to Charlestown.’ A few minutes afterwards he took Nelson and Daniel in either hand, and walked close to the hearse through the streets to the church in whose crypt the interment took place. It was a touching and solemn sight. He was excessively pale.”