"O God! look on me, and my children spare!" XIII. Their little arms still round each other clung, When their last sleep death's shadow o'er them flung! And still they slept, and fainter grew their breath-- Faint and more faint, until their sleep was death. Deep, but unmurmured was the mother's grief, For in her FAITH she sought and found relief; Yea, while she mourned a daughter and a son, She looked to heaven, and cried, "Thy will be done!" But, oh! the father no such solace found-- Dark, cheerless anguish wrapt his spirit round; He was a stranger to the Christian's hope, And in bereavement's hour he sought a prop On which his pierced and stricken soul might lean; Yet, as he sought it, doubts would intervene-- Doubts which for years had clouded o'er his soul-- Doubts that, with prayers he struggled to control; For though a grounded faith he ne'er had known, He was no prayerless man; but he had grown To thinking manhood from his dreaming youth, A _seeker_ still--a _seeker after truth!_-- An earnest seeker, but his searching care Sought more in books and nature than by prayer; And vain he sought, nor books nor nature gave The hope of hopes that animates the grave! Though, to have felt that hope, he would have changed His station with the mendicant who ranged Homeless from door to door and begged his bread, While heaven hurled its tempest round his head. For what is hunger, pain, or piercing wind, To the eternal midnight of the mind? Or what on earth a horror can impart, Like his who feels engraven on his heart The word, _Annihilation!_ Often now The sad Enthusiast would strike his brow, And cry aloud, with deep and bitter groans, "How have I sinned, that both my little ones-- The children of my heart--should be struck down! O Thou Almighty Spirit! if thy frown Is now upon me, turn aside thy wrath, And guide me--lead, oh lead me in the path Of heaven's own truth; direct my faith aright, Teach me to hope, and lend thy Spirit's light." XIV. Thus, long his soul as a frail bark was tossed On a dark sea, with helm and compass lost, Till she who ever to his breast had been The star of hope and love, with brow serene, As if no sorrow e'er her heart had riven, But her eye calmly looked through time to heaven-- Soothed his sad spirit, and with anxious care Used much of reason, and yet more of prayer; Till bright'ning hope dawned gently o'er his soul, Like the sun's shadow at the freezing pole, Seen by the shiv'ring Greenlander, or e'er Its front of fire does his horizon cheer; While brighter still that ardent hope became, Till in his bosom glowed the living flame Of Christian faith--faith in the Saviour sent, By the eternal God, to preach, "Repent And be ye saved."---Then peace, as sunshine, fell On the Enthusiast's bosom, and the swell Of anguish died away, as o'er the deep The waves lie down when winds and tempests sleep. XV.