He held the child—for hope grew faint within;
Yet with that precious burden at his heart
He could not quite despair. “If I have
sinned,
If I am seen in Heaven’s all-searching light
Black and polluted, yet my child is pure,
And for the father’s sin he should not die.
Guard him, ye angels! Save him, O my God!”
Thus in the depths of his own soul he prayed,
And chafed again the little trembling hands,
And kissed the cheek so cold it spoke of death.
“Let me kneel down, dear father; let me pray,
For I am weary—I will sleep awhile;
But ere I sleep, dear father, let me pray.”
And round his father’s neck he twined his arms,
And faintly whispered half his evening prayer.
O wretched father! O polluted man!
Is it the wind that makes thee shiver thus?
PART II.
All day the snow came silently to earth,
Until the path before the cottage door
Was even with the drift on either side.
No foot disturbed the mass of crystals white,
But when the wind began to roar and shriek,
And Night descended, with her sable wing
Darkening the scene around, a pallid face
Which had been pressed against the window pane
For half an hour, came forth into the gloom.
As looks the moon upon some stormy night
When every star is quenched, and she alone
Through rifted clouds peers forth and keeps her watch:
So looked that wife and mother as she stood
Upon the threshold gazing down the road
With chattering teeth, and limbs that quaked with
cold,
Imagining she heard in every gust
The voice and footfall of the man she loved.
The hearth was piled with blazing logs that shed
A cheerful glow upon the cottage walls;
The table spread for three before it stood,
And yet the bread was all unbroken there,—
And from the cottage to the garden gate
A shivering form went flitting to and fro.
Despair was on her cheek—and in her eye
A mother’s anguish: “But they might
have seen
How fierce a storm was gathering—might
have stayed.”
And while the hope was fresh within her heart
She hurried in, but only to return
And take her station at the door again.
* * * *
*
The moments slowly lengthened into hours,
The air grew chilly—for upon the hearth
A few decaying embers smoked alone;
And pale with midnight vigils and with grief
The watcher knelt to find relief in prayer.
Then hark! a sound—a footstep—and
she starts!
Her heart leaps to her throat, and with a bound
She gains the cottage door—it opens wide.
