A Father’s Death Bed.
How solemn is the sick man’s room,
To friends or kindred lingering near;
Poring on that uncertain gloom
In silent heaviness and fear!
How sad, his feeble hand in thine,
The start of every pulse to share;
With painful haste each wish divine,
Yet feel the hopelessness of care.
To turn aside the full fraught eye,
Lest those faint orbs perceive the tear;
To bear the weight of every sigh,
Lest it should reach that wakeful ear.
In the dead stillness of the night,
To lose the faint, faint sound of breath;
To listen in restrain’d affright,
To deprecate each thought of death.
And when a movement chased that fear,
And gave thy heart-blood leave to flow,
In thrilling awe the prayer to hear,
Through the clos’d curtain murmur’d low.
The prayer of him whose holy tongue
Had never yet exceeded truth;
Upon whose guardian care had hung
The whole dependance of thy youth.
Who noble, dauntless, frank, and mild,
Was for his very goodness fear’d;
Beloved with fondness like a child,
And like a blessed saint rever’d.
I have known friends—but who can feel
The kindness such a father knew?
I serv’d him still with tender zeal,
But knew not then how much was due.
And did not Providence ordain
That we should soon be laid as low,
No heart could such a stroke sustain,
No reason would survive the blow.