The Widow's only Son

She wrapped her in her sable cloak,
And walked beside the sea;
But seldom of her sorrow spoke,—
Too full of grief was she!

'T was this that made her heart so sad,
To view the ocean wide:
The only son, that widow had,
Went out to sea and died.

And then, in that great, rolling deep,
With solemn, tearful eyes,
His mess-mates lowered, him down, to sleep
Till all the dead shall rise.

But where, among those waters vast,
With ceaseless fall and swell,
Her child to that repose had passed,
The mother none could tell.

She therefore questioned wave on wave,
As up they heaved to shore,
If they had rolled across his grave,
Whom she must see no more.

And often, when she marked a ship
With full, returning sail,
The color would forsake her lip,
And speech and vision fail.

For, O! she thought about the one
That spread its canvass white,
To waft away her only son
Forever from her sight!

But still, amid the bitter grief
Which wrung that widow's heart,
Her spirit felt the sweet relief
That faith and hope impart.

She knew her son had ever kept
The path to heavenly rest—
That, when he sank in death, he slept
Upon a Saviour's breast.

"My heavenly Father," she would say,
"I know the troubled sea
But holds from me the precious clay:
My child's at home with thee!"