Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/62



the soft summer-shower, whose herald-drops Stirr'd the broad vine-leaves to an answering joy, Swells to protracted rain, soothing the mind With sense of leisure, mother, haste to call Thy little flock around thee. Let them hail The rainy day, as one when tender love Brings forth for them its richest stores of thought. Think'st thou the needle's thrift or housewife's lore Yields richer payment? Mother! thou mayst stamp Such trace upon the waxen mind as life, With all its swelling floods, shall ne'er blot out. So take thy bright-eyed nursling on thy knee, And tell him of the God who rules the cloud And calms the tempest, and the glorious sun Brings forth rejoicing from the rosy east To gild the morn. Unlock thy treasured hoards Of hallow'd lore: how little Samuel heard At midnight, 'neath the temple's solemn arch, Jehovah's voice, and hasted to obey: How young Josiah turned to Israel's God Ere yet eight summers ripen'd on his brow: And how the sick child to his father cried, "My head! my head!" then, in his mother's arms, Grew pale and died: and how the prophet's prayer Did pluck him from the jaws of death again.