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!”