1864. And stronger and stronger The glory became ; And I saw them no longer: I woke from my dream. II. THE CHILD'S HOME-CALL. A FACT. "And was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom." LUKE XVI. 22. My eyes are very dim, mother, I cannot see you right; Sit near, and read my favorite hymn, For I shall die to-night. "Jesus who lived," - yes, that, mother, I learn'd it on your knee; Well I remember where you sate, When first you taught it me. Oh, yes, read on and on, mother, The words that Jesus said: And think, long after I am gone, He bore our sins instead. Oh, bright and blessed things, mother, My soul it is that sees; Yet feel you not the rush of wings Makes musical the breeze? Kind faces throng the room, mother, And gentle loving eyes : Do you not hear, "Come, sister, come," Is this the happy land, mother? The childless mother felt her hand All in a moment chill. Banningham, 1851. III. TRANSLATED, NOT CONFIRMED. TO ONE WHO WITH ME WATCHED THE PARTING HOURS OF A CANDIDATE FOR CONFIRMATION. TOGETHER we leant O'er her fragile form, As her head she bent To the long last storm. There was nothing of fear In that dying room, For Jesus was near And chased its gloom. We ask'd if she felt His presence was nigh, And the deep answer dwelt In her up-lighted eye. "Have you cast on His cross The weight of your sin? IV. THE PENITENT'S DEATH-bed. "As many as touched the hem of His garment were made perfectly whole." A COLD and wild autumnal sky: the sun was sinking fast, And bleakly blew o'er wood and wold the wintry northern blast; The chill rain fell in sudden gusts, still drifting on and on, The day had pass'd in storms, and night would now be here anon. Around the far horizon's skirts despairing roved the eye, When lo! a rainbow-fragment stamp'd upon that stormy sky. Broken and quivering it lay, one little fragment given From some few flickering beams of light far in the western heaven: The trembling colors came and went, and fainter, brighter grew Amid that wild untender sky, so tender and so true. |