Volume 2 / Book 4 — TO ONE IN AFFLICTION.

Dear friend! if word of mine could seal The bitter fount of all thy tears, And, through the future's cloudy years, Some glimpse of sunshine yet reveal— That word I might not dare to speak: A father's sorrow o'er his child So sacred seems and undefiled, To bid it cease we may not seek. Thy little boy has passed away From mortal sight and mortal love, To join the shining choir above And dwell amid the perfect day; All robed in spotless innocence, And fittest for celestial things, O'ershadowed by her rustling wings The angel softly led him hence: As pure as if the gentle rain Of his baptismal morn had sought His bosom's depths, and e'ery thought Had sweetly cleansed from earthly stain: Such blest assurance brings, I know, To bleeding hearts but sad relief— The dark and troubled tide of grief Must have its ebb and flow— And most of all when thou dost plod, Alone, upon these wintry days, Along the old familiar ways Wherein his little feet have trod. And thou dost treasure up his words, The fragments of his earnest talk, On some remembered morning walk, When, at the song of earliest birds, He'd ask of thee, with charméd look, And smile upon his features spread, Whose careful hand the birds had fed, And filled the ever-running brook? Or viewing, from the distant glade, The dim horizon round his home, With simplest speech and air would come And ask why were the mountains made? Be strong, my friend, these days of doom Are but the threads of darkest hue, That daily enter to renew The warp of the Eternal Loom. And when to us it shall be given In joy to see the other side These threads the brightest shall abide In the fair tapestries of Heaven!