[327] A beautiful spring in the woods near St Asaph, formerly covered in with a chapel, now in ruins. It was dedicated to the Virgin, and, according to Pennant, much the resort of pilgrims.

[Those who only know the neighbourhood of St Asaph from travelling along its highways, can be little aware how much delightful scenery is attainable within walks of two or three miles’ distance from Mrs Hemans’s residence. The placid beauty of the Clwyd, and the wilder graces of the sister stream, the Elwy, particularly in the vicinity of “Our Lady’s Well,” and the interesting rocks and caves at Cefn, are little known to general tourists; though, by the lovers of her poetry, it will be remembered how sweetly she has apostrophised the

“Fount of the chapel with ages gray;”

and how tenderly, amid far different scenes, her thoughts reverted to the

“Cambrian river with slow music gliding,
By pastoral hills, old woods, and ruin’d towers.”
—(Sonnet to the River Clwyd.)
—Memoir, p. 92-3.]

THE PARTING OF SUMMER.

Thou’rt bearing hence thy roses,
Glad summer, fare thee well!
Thou’rt singing thy last melodies
In every wood and dell.
But ere the golden sunset
Of thy latest lingering day,
Oh! tell me, o’er this checker’d earth,
How hast thou pass’d away?
Brightly, sweet Summer! brightly
Thine hours have floated by,
To the joyous birds of the woodland boughs,
The rangers of the sky;
And brightly in the forests,
To the wild deer wandering free;
And brightly, ’midst the garden flowers,
To the happy murmuring bee:
But how to human bosoms,
With all their hopes and fears,
And thoughts that make them eagle-wings,
To pierce the unborn years?
Sweet Summer! to the captive
Thou hast flown in burning dreams
Of the woods, with all their whispering leaves,
And the blue rejoicing streams;—
To the wasted and the weary
On the bed of sickness bound,
In swift delirious fantasies,
That changed with every sound;—
To the sailor on the billows,
In longings, wild and vain,
For the gushing founts and breezy hills,
And the homes of earth again!
And unto me, glad Summer!
How hast thou flown to me?
My chainless footstep naught hath kept
From thy haunts of song and glee.
Thou hast flown in wayward visions,
In memories of the dead—
In shadows from a troubled heart,
O’er thy sunny pathway shed:
In brief and sudden strivings
To fling a weight aside—
Midst these thy melodies have ceased,
And all thy roses died.
But oh! thou gentle Summer!
If I greet thy flowers once more,
Bring me again the buoyancy
Wherewith my soul should soar!
Give me to hail thy sunshine
With song and spirit free;
Or in a purer air than this
May that next meeting be!

THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS.

——“Sing aloud
Old songs, the precious music of the heart.”
Wordsworth
Sing them upon the sunny hills,
When days are long and bright,
And the blue gleam of shining rills
Is loveliest to the sight!
Sing them along the misty moor,
Where ancient hunters roved,
And swell them through the torrent’s roar,
The songs our fathers loved!—
The songs their souls rejoiced to hear
When harps were in the hall,
And each proud note made lance and spear
Thrill on the banner’d wall:
The songs that through our valleys green,
Sent on from age to age,
Like his own river’s voice, have been
The peasant’s heritage.
The reaper sings them when the vale
Is fill’d with plumy sheaves;
The woodman, by the starlight pale,
Cheer’d homeward through the leaves:
And unto them the glancing oars
A joyous measure keep,
Where the dark rocks that crest our shores
Dash back the foaming deep.
So let it be! a light they shed
O’er each old fount and grove;
A memory of the gentle dead,
A lingering spell of love.
Murmuring the names of mighty men,
They bid our streams roll on,
And link high thoughts to every glen
Where valiant deeds were done.
Teach them your children round the hearth,
When evening fires burn clear,
And in the fields of harvest mirth,
And on the hills of deer.
So shall each unforgotten word,
When far those loved ones roam,
Call back the hearts which once it stirr’d,
To childhood’s holy home.
The green woods of their native land
Shall whisper in the strain,
The voices of their household band
Shall breathe their names again;
The heathery heights in vision rise,
Where, like the stag, they roved.
Sing to your sons those melodies,
The songs your fathers loved!

THE WORLD IN THE OPEN AIR.

Come, while in freshness and dew it lies,
To the world that is under the free blue skies!
Leave ye man’s home, and forget his care—
There breathes no sigh on the dayspring’s air.
Come to the woods, in whose mossy dells
A light, all made for the poet dwells—
A light, colour’d softly by tender leaves,
Whence the primrose a mellower glow receives.
The stock-dove is there in the beechen tree,
And the lulling tone of the honey-bee;
And the voice of cool waters midst feathery fern,
Shedding sweet sounds from some hidden urn.
There is life, there is youth, there is tameless mirth,
Where the streams, with the lilies they wear, have birth;
There is peace where the alders are whispering low:
Come from man’s dwellings with all their woe!
Yes! we will come—we will leave behind
The homes and the sorrows of human kind.
It is well to rove where the river leads
Its bright blue vein along sunny meads:
It is well through the rich wild woods to go,
And to pierce the haunts of the fawn and doe;
And to hear the gushing of gentle springs,
When the heart has been fretted by worldly stings;
And to watch the colours that flit and pass,
With insect-wings, through the wavy grass;
And the silvery gleams o’er the ash-tree’s bark,
Borne in with a breeze through the foliage dark.
Joyous and far shall our wanderings be,
As the flight of birds o’er the glittering sea:
To the woods, to the dingles where violets blow,
We will bear no memory of earthly woe.
But if, by the forest-brook, we meet
A line like the pathway of former feet;
If, midst the hills, in some lonely spot,
We reach the gray ruins of tower or cot;—
If the cell, where a hermit of old hath pray’d,
Lift up its cross through the solemn shade;
Or if some nook, where the wild flowers wave,
Bear token sad of a mortal grave,—
Doubt not but there will our steps be stay’d,
There our quick spirits awhile delay’d;
There will thought fix our impatient eyes,
And win back our hearts to their sympathies.
For what though the mountains and skies be fair,
Steep’d in soft hues of the summer air?
’Tis the soul of man, by its hopes and dreams,
That lights up all nature with living gleams.
Where it hath suffer’d and nobly striven,
Where it hath pour’d forth its vows to heaven;
Where to repose it hath brightly pass’d,
O’er this green earth there is glory cast.
And by that soul, midst groves and rills,
And flocks that feed on a thousand hills,
Birds of the forest, and flowers of the sod,
We, only we, may be link’d to God!

KINDRED HEARTS.

Oh! ask not, hope thou not too much
Of sympathy below!
Few are the hearts whence one same touch
Bids the sweet fountains flow—
Few, and by still conflicting powers
Forbidden here to meet:
Such ties would make this life of ours
Too fair for aught so fleet.
It may be that thy brother’s eye
Sees not as thine, which turns
In such deep reverence to the sky,
Where the rich sunset burns:
It may be that the breath of spring,
Born amidst violets lone,
A rapture o’er thy soul can bring—
A dream, to his unknown.
The tune that speaks of other times—
A sorrowful delight!
The melody of distant chimes,
The sound of waves by night,
The wind that, with so many a tone,
Some chord within can thrill,—
These may have language all thine own,
To him a mystery still.
Yet scorn thou not, for this, the true
And steadfast love of years;
The kindly, that from childhood grew,
The faithful to thy tears!
If there be one that o’er the dead
Hath in thy grief borne part,
And watch’d through sickness by thy bed,—
Call his a kindred heart!
But for those bonds all perfect made,
Wherein bright spirits blend,
Like sister flowers of one sweet shade
With the same breeze that bend—
For that full bliss of thought allied
Never to mortals given,
Oh! lay thy lovely dreams aside,
Or lift them unto heaven.

THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

In sunset’s light, o’er Afric thrown,
A wanderer proudly stood
Beside the well-spring, deep and lone,
Of Egypt’s awful flood—
The cradle of that mighty birth,
So long a hidden thing to earth!
He heard its life’s first murmuring sound,
A low mysterious tone—
A music sought, but never found
By kings and warriors gone.
He listen’d—and his heart beat high:
That was the song of victory!
The rapture of a conqueror’s mood
Rush’d burning through his frame,—
The depths of that green solitude
Its torrents could not tame;
Though stillness lay, with eve’s last smile,
Round those far fountains of the Nile.
Night came with stars. Across his soul
There swept a sudden change:
E’en at the pilgrim’s glorious goal,
A shadow dark and strange
Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall
O’er triumph’s hour—and is this all?[328]
No more than this! What seem’d it now
First by that spring to stand?
A thousand streams of lovelier flow
Bathed his own mountain-land!
Whence, far o’er waste and ocean track,
Their wild, sweet voices, call’d him back.
They call’d him back to many a glade,
His childhood’s haunt of play,
Where brightly through the beechen shade
Their waters glanced away;
They call’d him, with their sounding waves,
Back to his father’s hills and graves.
But, darkly mingling with the thought
Of each familiar scene,
Rose up a fearful vision, fraught
With all that lay between—
The Arab’s lance, the desert’s gloom,
The whirling sands, the red simoom!
Where was the glow of power and pride?
The spirit born to roam?
His alter’d heart within him died
With yearnings for his home!
All vainly struggling to repress
That gush of painful tenderness.
He wept! The stars of Afric’s heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,
E’en on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years!—
O Happiness! how far we flee
Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!

[328] Bruce’s mingled feelings on arriving at the source of the Nile, are thus portrayed by him:—“I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had for many years been the principal object of my ambition and wishes; indifference, which, from the usual infirmity of human nature, follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh and the fountains of the Nile, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan, rise in one hill. I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy.”

CASABIANCA.[329]

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm—
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though child-like form.
The flames roll’d on—he would not go
Without his father’s word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He call’d aloud:—“Say, father! say
If yet my task is done!”
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
“Speak, father!” once again he cried,
“If I may yet be gone!”
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll’d on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And look’d from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair;
And shouted but once more aloud,
“My father! must I stay?”
While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream’d above the gallant child
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder-sound—
The boy—oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strew’d the sea!—
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part;
But the noblest thing which perish’d there
Was that young faithful heart!

[329] Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the Admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

THE DIAL OF FLOWERS.[330]

’Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours,
As they floated in light away,
By the opening and the folding flowers,
That laugh to the summer’s day.
Thus had each moment its own rich hue,
And its graceful cup and bell,
In whose colour’d vase might sleep the dew,
Like a pearl in an ocean-shell.
To such sweet signs might the time have flow’d
In a golden current on,
Ere from the garden, man’s first abode,
The glorious guests were gone.
So might the days have been brightly told—
Those days of song and dreams—
When shepherds gather’d their flocks of old
By the blue Arcadian streams.
So in those isles of delight, that rest
Far off in a breezeless main,
Which many a bark, with a weary quest,
Has sought, but still in vain.
Yet is not life, in its real flight,
Mark’d thus—even thus—on earth,
By the closing of one hope’s delight,
And another’s gentle birth?
Oh! let us live, so that flower by flower,
Shutting in turn, may leave
A lingerer still for the sunset hour,
A charm for the shaded eve.

[330] This dial was, I believe, formed by Linnæus, and marked the hours by the opening and closing, at regular intervals, of the flowers arranged in it.

OUR DAILY PATHS.[331]

“Naught shall prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.”   Wordsworth.
There’s beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes
Can trace it midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise;
We may find it where a hedgerow showers its blossoms o’er our way,
Or a cottage window sparkles forth in the last red light of day.
We may find it where a spring shines clear beneath an aged tree,
With the foxglove o’er the water’s glass, borne downwards by the bee;
Or where a swift and sunny gleam on the birchen stems is thrown,
As a soft wind playing parts the leaves, in copses green and lone.
We may find it in the winter boughs, as they cross the cold blue sky,
While soft on icy pool and stream their pencil’d shadows lie,
When we look upon their tracery, by the fairy frost-work bound,
Whence the flitting redbreast shakes a shower of crystals to the ground.
Yes! beauty dwells in all our paths—but sorrow too is there:
How oft some cloud within us dims the bright, still summer air!
When we carry our sick hearts abroad amidst the joyous things,
That through the leafy places glance on many-colour’d wings,
With shadows from the past we fill the happy woodland shades,
And a mournful memory of the dead is with us in the glades;
And our dream-like fancies lend the wind an echo’s plaintive tone
Of voices, and of melodies, and of silvery laughter gone.
But are we free to do even thus—to wander as we will,
Bearing sad visions through the grove, and o’er the breezy hill?
No! in our daily paths lie cares, that ofttimes bind us fast,
While from their narrow round we see the golden day fleet past.
They hold us from the woodlark’s haunts, and violet dingles, back,
And from all the lovely sounds and gleams in the shining river’s track;
They bar us from our heritage of spring-time, hope, and mirth,
And weigh our burden’d spirits down with the cumbering dust of earth.
Yet should this be? Too much, too soon, despondingly we yield!
A better lesson we are taught by the lilies of the field!
A sweeter by the birds of heaven—which tell us, in their flight,
Of One that through the desert air for ever guides them right.
Shall not this knowledge calm our hearts, and bid vain conflicts cease?
Ay, when they commune with themselves in holy hours of peace,
And feel that by the lights and clouds through which our pathway lies,
By the beauty and the grief alike, we are training for the skies!

[331] This little poem derives an additional interest from being affectingly associated with a name no less distinguished than that of the late Mr Dugald Stewart. The admiration he always expressed for Mrs Hemans’s poetry, was mingled with regret that she so generally made choice of melancholy subjects; and on one occasion, he sent her, through a mutual friend, a message suggestive of his wish that she would employ her fine talents in giving more consolatory views of the ways of Providence, thus infusing comfort and cheer into the bosoms of her readers, in a spirit of Christian philosophy, which, he thought, would be more consonant with the pious mind and loving heart displayed in every line she wrote, than dwelling on what was painful and depressing, however beautifully and touchingly such subjects might be treated of. This message was faithfully transmitted, and almost by return of post, Mrs Hemans (who was then residing in Wales) sent to the kind friend to whom it had been forwarded, the poem of “Our Daily Paths,” requesting it might be given to Mr Stewart, with an assurance of her gratitude for the interest he took in her writings, and alleging as the reason of the mournful strain which pervaded them, “that a cloud hung over her life which she could not always rise above.”

The letter reached Mr Stewart just as he was stepping into the carriage, to leave his country residence (Kinneil House, the property of the Duke of Hamilton) for Edinburgh—the last time, alas! his presence was ever to gladden that happy home, as his valuable life was closed very shortly afterwards. The poem was read to him by his daughter, on his way to Edinburgh, and he expressed himself in the highest degree charmed and gratified with the result of his suggestions; and some of the lines which pleased him more particularly were often repeated to him during the few remaining weeks of his life.

THE CROSS IN THE WILDERNESS.

Silent and mournful sat an Indian chief,
In the red sunset, by a grassy tomb;
His eyes, that might not weep, were dark with grief,
And his arms folded in majestic gloom;
And his bow lay unstrung, beneath the mound
Which sanctified the gorgeous waste around.
For a pale cross above its greensward rose,
Telling the cedars and the pines that there
Man’s heart and hope had struggled with his woes,
And lifted from the dust a voice of prayer.
Now all was hush’d—and eve’s last splendour shone
With a rich sadness on th’ attesting stone.
There came a lonely traveller o’er the wild,
And he, too, paused in reverence by that grave,
Asking the tale of its memorial, piled
Between the forest and the lake’s bright wave;
Till, as a wind might stir a wither’d oak,
On the deep dream of age his accents broke.
And the gray chieftain, slowly rising, said—
“I listen’d for the words, which, years ago,
Pass’d o’er these waters. Though the voice is fled
Which made them as a singing fountain’s flow,
Yet, when I sit in their long-faded track,
Sometimes the forest’s murmur gives them back.
“Ask’st thou of him whose house is lone beneath?
I was an eagle in my youthful pride,
When o’er the seas he came, with summer’s breath,
To dwell amidst us, on the lake’s green side.
Many the times of flowers have been since then—
Many, but bringing naught like him again!
“Not with the hunter’s bow and spear he came,
O’er the blue hills to chase the flying roe;
Not the dark glory of the woods to tame,
Laying their cedars, like the corn-stalks, low;
But to spread tidings of all holy things,
Gladdening our souls, as with the morning’s wings.
“Doth not yon cypress whisper how we met,
I and my brethren that from earth are gone,
Under its boughs to hear his voice, which yet
Seems through their gloom to send a silvery tone?
He told of One the grave’s dark bonds who broke,
And our hearts burn’d within us as he spoke.
“He told of far and sunny lands, which lie
Beyond the dust wherein our fathers dwell:
Bright must they be! for there are none that die,
And none that weep, and none that say ‘Farewell!’
He came to guide us thither; but away
The Happy call’d him, and he might not stay.
“We saw him slowly fade—athirst, perchance,
For the fresh waters of that lovely clime;
Yet was there still a sunbeam in his glance,
And on his gleaming hair no touch of time—
Therefore we hoped: but now the lake looks dim,
For the green summer comes—and finds not him!
“We gather’d round him in the dewy hour
Of one still morn, beneath his chosen tree;
From his clear voice, at first, the words of power
Came low, like moanings of a distant sea;
But swell’d and shook the wilderness ere long,
As if the spirit of the breeze grew strong.
“And then once more they trembled on his tongue,
And his white eyelids flutter’d, and his head
Fell back, and mist upon his forehead hung——
Know’st thou not how we pass to join the dead?
It is enough! he sank upon my breast—
Our friend that loved us, he was gone to rest!
“We buried him where he was wont to pray,
By the calm lake, e’en here, at eventide;
We rear’d this cross in token where he lay,
For on the cross, he said, his Lord had died!
Now hath he surely reach’d, o’er mount and wave,
That flowery land whose green turf hides no grave.
“But I am sad! I mourn the clear light taken
Back from my people, o’er whose place it shone,
The pathway to the better shore forsaken,
And the true words forgotten, save by one,
Who hears them faintly sounding from the past,
Mingled with death-songs in each fitful blast.”
Then spoke the wanderer forth with kindling eye:
“Son of the wilderness! despair thou not,
Though the bright hour may seem to thee gone by,
And the cloud settled o’er thy nation’s lot!
Heaven darkly works—yet, where the seed hath been,
There shall the fruitage, glowing yet, be seen.
“Hope on, hope ever!—by the sudden springing
Of green leaves which the winter hid so long;
And by the bursts of free, triumphant singing,
After cold silent months the woods among;
And by the rending of the frozen chains,
Which bound the glorious rivers on their plains.
“Deem not the words of light that here were spoken,
But as a lovely song, to leave no trace;
Yet shall the gloom which wraps thy hills be broken,
And the full dayspring rise upon thy race!
And fading mists the better path disclose,
And the wide desert blossom as the rose.”
So by the cross they parted, in the wild,
Each fraught with musings for life’s after day,
Memories to visit one, the forest’s child,
By many a blue stream in its lonely way;
And upon one, midst busy throngs to press
Deep thoughts and sad, yet full of holiness.

[“‘The Cross in the Wilderness,’ by Mrs Hemans, is in every way worthy of her delightful genius; and nothing but want of room prevents us from quoting it entire. Mrs Hemans is, indeed, the star that shines most brightly in the hemisphere; and in every thing she writes, there is, along with a fine spirit of poetry, a still finer spirit of moral and religious truth. Of all the female poets of the day, Mrs Hemans is, in the best sense of the word, the most truly feminine—no false glitter about her—no ostentatious display—no gaudy and jingling ornaments—but, as an English matron ought to be, simple, sedate, cheerful, elegant, and religious.”—Professor Wilson in Blackwood’s Magazine. Dec. 1826.

LAST RITES.

By the mighty minster’s bell,
Tolling with a sudden swell;
By the colours half-mast high,
O’er the sea hung mournfully;
Know, a prince hath died!
By the drum’s dull muffled sound,
By the arms that sweep the ground,
By the volleying muskets’ tone,
Speak ye of a soldier gone
In his manhood’s pride.
By the chanted psalm that fills
Reverently the ancient hills,[332]
Learn, that from his harvests done,
Peasants hear a brother on
To his last repose.
By the pall of snowy white
Through the yew-trees gleaming bright;
By the garland on the bier,
Weep! a maiden claims thy tear—
Broken is the rose!
Which is the tenderest rite of all?—
Buried virgin’s coronal,
Requiem o’er the monarch’s head,
Farewell gun for warrior dead,
Herdsman’s funeral hymn?
Tells not each of human woe?
Each of hope and strength brought low?
Number each with holy things,
If one chastening thought it brings
Ere life’s day grow dim!

[332] A custom still retained at rural funerals in some parts of England and Wales.

THE HEBREW MOTHER.[333]

The rose was in rich bloom on Sharon’s plain,
When a young mother, with her first-born, thence
Went up to Zion; for the boy was vow’d
Unto the Temple service. By the hand
She led him, and her silent soul, the while,
Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye
Met her sweet serious glance, rejoiced to think
That aught so pure, so beautiful was hers,
To bring before her God. So pass’d they on
O’er Judah’s hills; and wheresoe’er the leaves
Of the broad sycamore made sounds at noon,
Like lulling rain-drops, or the olive boughs,
With their cool dimness, cross’d the sultry blue
Of Syria’s heaven, she paused, that he might rest;
Yet from her own meek eyelids chased the sleep
That weigh’d their dark fringe down, to sit and watch
The crimson deepening o’er his cheek’s repose,
As at a red flower’s heart. And where a fount
Lay, like a twilight star, midst palmy shades,
Making its bank green gems along the wild,
There, too, she linger’d, from the diamond wave
Drawing bright water for his rosy lips,
And softly parting clusters of jet curls
To bathe his brow. At last the fane was reach’d,
The earth’s one sanctuary—and rapture hush’d
Her bosom, as before her, through the day,
It rose, a mountain of white marble, steep’d
In light like floating gold. But when that hour
Waned to the farewell moment, when the boy
Lifted, through rainbow-gleaming tears, his eye
Beseechingly to hers, and half in fear,
Turn’d from the white-robed priest, and round her arm
Clung even as joy clings—the deep spring-tide
Of nature then swell’d high, and o’er her child
Bending, her soul broke forth in mingled sounds
Of weeping and sad song. “Alas!” she cried,—
“Alas! my boy, thy gentle grasp is on me,
The bright tears quiver in thy pleading eyes;
And now fond thoughts arise,
And silver cords again to earth have won me,
And like a vine thou claspest my full heart—
How shall I hence depart?
“How the lone paths retrace where thou wert playing
So late, along the mountains, at my side?
And I, in joyous pride,
By every place of flowers my course delaying,
Wove, e’en as pearls, the lilies round thy hair,
Beholding thee so fair!
“And, oh! the home whence thy bright smile hath parted,
Will it not seem as if the sunny day
Turn’d from its door away?
While through its chambers wandering, weary-hearted,
I languish for thy voice, which past me still
Went like a singing rill?
“Under the palm-trees thou no more shalt meet me,
When from the fount at evening I return,
With the full water-urn;
Nor will thy sleep’s low dove-like breathings greet me,
As midst the silence of the stars I wake,
And watch for thy dear sake.
“And thou, will slumber’s dewy cloud fall round thee,
Without thy mother’s hand to smooth thy bed?
Wilt thou not vainly spread
Thine arms, when darkness as a veil hath wound thee,
To fold my neck, and lift up, in thy fear,
A cry which none shall hear?
“What have I said, my child! Will He not hear thee,
Who the young ravens heareth from their nest?
Shall He not guard thy rest,
And, in the hush of holy midnight near thee,
Breathe o’er thy soul, and fill its dreams with joy?
Thou shalt sleep soft, my boy.
“I give thee to thy God—the God that gave thee,
A well-spring of deep gladness to my heart!
And, precious as thou art,
And pure as dew of Hermon, He shall have thee,
My own, my beautiful, my undefiled!
And thou shalt be His child.
“Therefore, farewell! I go—my soul may fail me,
As the hart panteth for the water brooks,
Yearning for thy sweet looks.
But thou, my first-born, droop not, nor bewail me;
Thou in the Shadow of the Rock shalt dwell,
The Rock of Strength.—Farewell!”