Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/66

62 For over all the darkness and the fear That marked his life from childhood, shining clear, An arch, like God's bright rainbow, stretched above, And joined the first and last,—his mother's love.

They dug a grave beneath the tuads' shade, Where all unknown to them the bones were laid Of Jacob's kindred; and a prayer was said In earnest sorrow for the unknown dead, Round which the children grouped.


 * Upon the breast

The hands were folded in eternal rest; But still they held, as dearest to that place Where life last throbbed, the empty carven case.