XIII.
Their little arms still round each other clung,
When their last sleep death's shadow o'er them flung!
And still they slept, and fainter grew their breath—
Faint and more faint, until their sleep was death.
Deep, but unmurmured was the mother's grief,
For in her FAITH she sought and found relief;
Yea, while she mourned a daughter and a son,
She looked to heaven, and cried, "Thy will be done!"
But, oh! the father no such solace found—
Dark, cheerless anguish wrapt his spirit round;
He was a stranger to the Christian's hope,
And in bereavement's hour he sought a prop
On which his pierced and stricken soul might lean;
Yet, as he sought it, doubts would intervene—
Doubts which for years had clouded o'er his soul—
Doubts that, with prayers he struggled to control;
For though a grounded faith he ne'er had known,
He was no prayerless man; but he had grown
To thinking manhood from his dreaming youth,
A seeker still—a seeker after truth!—
An earnest seeker, but his searching care
Sought more in books and nature than by prayer;
And vain he sought, nor books nor nature gave
The hope of hopes that animates the grave!
Though, to have felt that hope, he would have changed
His station with the mendicant who ranged
Homeless from door to door and begged his bread,
While heaven hurled its tempest round his head.
For what is hunger, pain, or piercing wind,
To the eternal midnight of the mind?
Or what on earth a horror can impart,
Like his who feels engraven on his heart
The word, Annihilation! Often now
The sad Enthusiast would strike his brow,
And cry aloud, with deep and bitter groans,
"How have I sinned, that both my little ones—
The children of my heart—should be struck down!
O Thou Almighty Spirit! if thy frown
Is now upon me, turn aside thy wrath,
And guide me—lead, oh lead me in the path
Of heaven's own truth; direct my faith aright,
Teach me to hope, and lend thy Spirit's light."