"
Years have passed, and that dear mother
Long has mouldered 'neath the sod,
And I trust her sainted spirit
Rests within the home of God:
But that scene at summer twilight
Never has from memory fled,
And it comes in all its freshness
When I see my trundle bed.
This she taught me, then she told me
Of its import great and deep--
After which I learned to utter
"Now I lay me down to sleep."
Then it was with hands uplifted,
And in accents soft and mild,
That my mother asked--"Our Father!
Father! do thou bless my child!"
* * * * *
THE RIFT OF THE ROCK.
In the rift of the rock He has covered my head,
When the tempest was wild in the desolate land
Through a pathway uncertain my steps He has led,
And I felt in the darkness the touch of His hand
Leading on, leading over the slippery steep,
Where came but the echoing sound of the shock,
And, clear through the sorrowful moan of the deep,
The singing of birds in the rift of the rock.
In the rift of the rock He has sheltered my soul
When at noonday the toilers grew faint in the heat,
Where the desert rolled far like a limitless scroll
Cool waters leaped up at the touch of His feet
And the flowers that lay with pale lips to the sod
Bloom softly and fair from a holier stock;
Winged home by the winds to the mountains of God,
They bloom evermore in the rift of the rock.
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