“Oh sorrow, sorrow!” loud he cried, As the helm flew from his hand, And he knew that the boat was sinking But half a league from land. “Oh sorrow, sorrow!” as he sank Was still his wailing cry; And Marien heard amid the storm, That voice of misery. Now all this while the children small Kept in their dreary place, Troubled and sad, and half afear’d Of their dead mother’s face. And when, to while the time, they played With shells beside the door, They found they had not hearts for mirth, And so they played no more. Yet keeping up with forced content Their hearts as best they might, Still wishing afternoon were gone, And it was only night. But when, hour after hour went on, And the night tempest black Raged o’er the stormy sea, and still The father came not back; It would have touched a heart of stone To see their looks of fear-- So young and so forlorn;--their words Of counsel small to hear. And now they shouted through the storm; And then with bitter wit, As they had seen their mother do, A fire of wood they lit, That he might see the light afar And steer his boat by it. Unto this light came Marien; And ere her weary feet Had reached the floor, the children ran With eager arms to meet Their loving father, as they thought, And give him welcome sweet. Alas! the father even then Had run his mortal race; But God had sent his Comforter To fill his earthly place. PART IX. Woe’s me, what secret tears are shed, What wounded spirits bleed; What loving hearts are sundered, And yet man takes no heed! He goeth on his daily course, Made fat with oil and wine, And pitieth not the weary souls That in his bondage pine; That turn for him the mazy wheel; That delve for him the mine. And pitieth not the children small, In noisy factories dim, That all day long, lean, pale, and faint, Do heavy tasks for him! To him they are but as the stones Beneath his feet that lie: It entereth not his thoughts that they From him claim sympathy. It entereth not his thoughts that God Heareth the sufferer’s groan, That in his righteous eye, their life Is precious as his own. This moves him not. But let us now Unto the fisher’s shed, Where sat his weeping little ones Three days beside the dead. It was a solitary waste Of barren sand, which bore No sign of human dwelling-place For miles along the shore. Yet to the scattered dwellers there Sped Marien, and besought That of the living and the dead They would take Christian thought. So in the churchyard by the sea, The senseless dead was laid: “And now what will become of us!” The weeping children said.