MY GUIDING STAR

Adrift alone on life's bleak ocean waste,

Through starless nights and dreary sunless days;

Wherever currents led o'er pathless maze,

I plied the oars of aimless toil, and faced

Defeat impatiently, nor ever traced

One ray of hope along the murky haze

Of life's horizon, till I caught the blaze

Of one lone star, whose light was virgin-chaste.

But now I sail through seas where fortune smiles,

And not a cloud the brilliant sky doth mar;

For, ever twinkling near that blazing light,

A little orb my every care beguiles:

My radiant wife is that lone guiding star,

My laughing blue-eyed boy its satellite!