Robert Roscoe (1789?–1850)

O BLESSÈD be the tear that sadly rolled

For me, my mother! down thy sacred cheek;

That with a silent fervour did bespeak

A fonder tale than language ever told;

And poured such balm upon my spirit, weak

And wounded, in a world so harsh and cold,

As that wherewith an angel would uphold

Those that astray heaven’s holy guidance seek.

And though it passed away, and, soon as shed,

Seemed ever lost to vanish from thine eye,

Yet only to the dearest store it fled

Of my remembrance, where it now doth lie,

Like a thrice precious relic of the dead,

The chiefest jewel of its treasury.