Dear Augur hopes in ruin lays;
My Ebineezah I could not raise;
Deah lost gazelles, I can but weep,
With gloomy eyes bent o’eh the deep.
One Slimpsey star, whose name is Simon,
Still twinkles faint, like a small sized diamond;
Oh, star of hope, I sithe, I weep,
Thou shinest so faint across the deep.
There was between 20 and 30 verses of ’em, but truly it is always the darkest jest before daylight, for as she was a readin’ of ’em, I—a leanin’ back in my chair—dropped off to sleep, and forgot my trouble. Betsey also went to sleep before she read the last of ’em. And when I waked up, the boat had stopped in front of our house, the wind had gone down, the sun was a shinin’, and Josiah was comin’ down to the bank. The danger was all past—Home and Josiah was mine agin. I grasped holt of his hand as he helped me get off, and in a voice tremulous with feelin’s I could not control I said,
“I have got home Josiah! is breakfast ready?”