Be near me when all else is from me drifting; Earth, sky, home’s pictures, days of shade and shine, And kindly faces to my own uplifting The love which answers mine. I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy spirit Be with me then to comfort and uphold; No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit, Nor street of shining gold. Suffice it if—my good and ill unreckoned, And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace— I find myself by hands familiar beckoned Unto my fitting place. Some humble door among Thy many mansions, Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease, And flows forever through heaven’s green expansions The river of Thy peace. There, from the music round about me stealing, I fain would learn the new and holy song, And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, The life for which I long. The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS U · S · A ----- Footnote 1: Carpenter’s _Whittier_, p. 118. Footnote 2: Carpenter’s _Whittier_, p. 287. Footnote 3: For the circumstances in which _Snow-Bound_ was written, see the prefatory memoir. The passage here given begins with the second night of the storm. Footnote 4: See Pickard’s _Life of Whittier_, pp. 276, 426–428, and _Whittier-Land_, pp. 66–67. Footnote 5: A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home.—WHITTIER. The scene is minutely that of the Whittier homestead. Footnote 6: See Carpenter’s _Whittier_, p. 30. Footnote 7: In the valuable and carefully prepared _History of Marblehead_, published in 1879 by Samuel Roads, Jr., it is stated that the crew of Captain Ireson, rather than himself, were responsible for the abandonment of the disabled vessel. To screen themselves they charged their captain with the crime. In view of this the writer of the ballad addressed the following letter to the historian: OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, _5 mo. 18, 1880_.