Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/168

164 They looked their last, wet-eyed, on Swedish hills,
 * On German villages and English dales;

Like brooks that grow from many mountain rills
 * The peasant-stream flowed out from Irish vales.

Their grief at parting was not all a grief,
 * But blended sweetly with the joy to come,

When from full store they spared the rich relief
 * To gladden all the dear ones left at home.

"We thank thee, God!" they cried;" the cruel gate
 * That barred our lives has swung beneath Thy hand;

Behind our ship now frowns the cruel fate,
 * Before her smiles the teeming Promised Land!"

Alas! when shown in mercy or in wrath,
 * How weak we are to read God's awful lore!

His breath protected on the stormy path,
 * And dashed them lifeless on the promised shore!