A bereaved mother mourning her dead daughter in a graveyard, stricken with remorse for having treated her harshly in her lifetime. Engraving by R.L. Wright.

An episode described in 'Satan: a poem', 1830, by Robert Montgomery, book III: "But need I travel into years unborn / To gather misery ?—behold it here! / Here, where a childless mother by the tomb / Of her dead offspring, wan and wither'd sits / In the dull stupor of despairing grief; / Her brow is bent, her visage thin and worn, / Her garments fading like neglected flowers, / And not a glance, but speaks an agony! / Oh, wretch! whose sorrow all thy virtue proves; / For she who perish'd in a timeless grave, / Though beautiful as ever sunshine knew, / In love and truth most tenderly endow'd, / When living, was a curse to thee! Thy hate / Pursued her, and thy blighting envy frown'd / Like a dark hell-shade on her youthful path: / Oft in the midnight thou would'st mutt'ring wake, / And bid the grave to open on thy child ! / Yet when her dwelling was the loathsome tomb, / And hateful envy had no charms to dread, / When that was dust which once an angel glow'd, / The mother's heart return'd again, and grief, / Too late, then rack'd thy being to remorse, / Making thee all that demons could desire. / For hope, nor faith, one reconciling beam / Impart, to brighten thy dark woes; unwatch’d, / Unseen, thou visitest a grassy haunt / Of death, and in the muteness of despair / Beneath a pining yew-tree lonely sitt'st, / To feast thine anguish on a daughter's tomb!"