CHAPITRE VI

And gloomily and sadly His comrades gather round, And hear, but dare not answer, The landward cheer resound, Because thev know that Doomed one From Port no more shall roam, But the Widow and the Orphan Must speak his welcome home.

Oh sight of fear ! Oh moment

Of anguish and of pain !

With what intense distinctness

Dost thou return again !

How yet, those drooping eyelids

Long shrouded in the grave

Cast their dim look of greeting

Across the su lien wave :

How everv dav is counted

Through ail that lingering year

Of weary suffering tended

In sorrow and in fear

The faint and gentle pressure

Of his cold relaxing hand

And the kiss so light and mournful

On her smooth hair's shilling band

The first sad kiss that ever

It chilled her to reoeive,

Because the Death she doubtod

It taught lier to believe !

And words so ieebly spokeu

That only love couid tell

Which were the tones of comiorl

And which of fond farewell,

Return like eehoes, sounding

Through the hollow waste of years

To prove, though youth be vanished ,

How fresh the fount of tears !

Yet thcirs is blessed sorrow Who thus may watch and tend Nor yield the dying hour To some lcss fervent friend ; To doubt when " ail is over, " How much of that sad ail Of meniojry's food for anguish The stranger can recail , But still recur, still weeping To that most bitter past, Unwearied by repeating The first word and the last, The restless heart still doubting Lest colder love forget

CUAPITUE VI.

Some tonc, winch Juul we keard it, WoukJ haunt and comfort yat ; Soute word left nsirecordecl , Some look unnoticed then; When looks and words are leaving The commun home of men , When Terror vainly hstens To the choked and struggling breath And helpless Thought rcruainctb, Dumb — and nlone with Death !

Her widowhood rclurnelh !

The long long cheorloss hours

When Hke a blossom blighted

Among a world of flowcrs,

Her heart lay cramped and wilbered

By bitlerness and pain.

And sunlight, joy, and fresliness

To her scemed made in vain.

For the glorious light of morning

And the dcwy cal m of eve

And the glowing noon-day beauty

Are alike to those who grieve,

And the winter Creside smites us

With a ehillness like the tomb

When no answcring voicc can bless us

In the long deserted home,

When we know no time can bring them

From the far world where they dwell

No shout of gladdening welcome

Succeed the long farewell,

But the well-known smiles are absent,

And the eye's dear light is o'er

And their place is cold and vacant

Now — and for evermore !

Oh Prayerî thou Shield and Buckler Of the faint despairing soul, Thou Lifter of the humble To where God's thunders roll , Framer of wings that bear us , Ail darkened as we are , To the world where light abideth ln the Sunshine and the Star :

Thou wert the Widow's succour The ever présent friend Shewing through every trouble A refuge and an end, And in lier chastened bosom The holy thought arose To shield her eager orphan From a worldVrf stormy woes,