FAITH AND DESPONDENCY
"The winter wind is loud and
wild,
Come close to me, my darling
child;
Forsake thy books, and mateless
play;
And, while the night is
gathering gray,
We'll talk its pensive hours
away;--
"Ierne, round our sheltered
hall
November's gusts unheeded
call;
Not one faint breath can
enter here
Enough to wave my daughter's
hair,
And I am glad to watch the
blaze
Glance from her eyes, with
mimic rays;
To feel her cheek, so softly
pressed,
In happy quiet on my breast,
"But, yet, even this tranquillity
Brings bitter, restless
thoughts to me;
And, in the red fire's cheerful
glow,
I think of deep glens, blocked
with snow;
I dream of moor, and misty
hill,
Where evening closes dark
and chill;
For, lone, among the mountains
cold,
Lie those that I have loved
of old.
And my heart aches, in hopeless
pain,
Exhausted with repinings
vain,
That I shall greet them
ne'er again!"
"Father, in early infancy,
When you were far beyond
the sea,
Such thoughts were tyrants
over me!
I often sat, for hours together,
Through the long nights
of angry weather,
Raised on my pillow, to
descry
The dim moon struggling
in the sky;
Or, with strained ear, to
catch the shock,
Of rock with wave, and wave
with rock;
So would I fearful vigil
keep,
And, all for listening,
never sleep.
But this world's life has
much to dread,
Not so, my Father, with
the dead.
"Oh! not for them, should
we despair,
The grave is drear, but
they are not there;
Their dust is mingled with
the sod,
Their happy souls are gone
to God!
You told me this, and yet
you sigh,
And murmur that your friends
must die.
Ah! my dear father, tell
me why?
For, if your former words
were true,
How useless would such sorrow
be;
As wise, to mourn the seed
which grew
Unnoticed on its parent
tree,
Because it fell in fertile
earth,
And sprang up to a glorious
birth--
Struck deep its root, and
lifted high
Its green boughs in the
breezy sky.
"But, I'll not fear, I will
not weep
For those whose bodies rest
in sleep,--
I know there is a blessed
shore,
Opening its ports for me
and mine;
And, gazing Time's wide
waters o'er,
I weary for that land divine,
Where we were born, where
you and I
Shall meet our dearest,
when we die;
From suffering and corruption
free,
Restored into the Deity."
"Well hast thou spoken, sweet,
trustful child!
And wiser than thy sire;
And worldly tempests, raging
wild,
Shall strengthen thy desire--
Thy fervent hope, through
storm and foam,
Through wind and ocean's
roar,
To reach, at last, the eternal
home,
The steadfast, changeless
shore!" |
