Lost in the Flood
When God drave the ruthless watersFrom our cornfields to the sea,Came she where our wives and daughtersSobbed their thanks on bended knee.Hidden faces! there ye found herMute as death, and staring wildAt the shadow waxing round herLike the presence of her child—Of her drenched and drowning child!
Dark thoughts live when tears won’t gather;Who can tell us what she felt?It was human, O my Father,If she blamed Thee while she knelt!Ever, as a benedictionFell like balm on all and each,Rose a young face whose afflictionChoked and stayed the founts of speech—Stayed and shut the founts of speech!
Often doth she sit and ponderOver gleams of happy hair!How her white hands used to wander,Like a flood of moonlight there!Lord—our Lord! Thou know’st her weakness:Give her faith that she may pray;And the subtle strength of meekness,Lest she falter by the way—Falter, fainting, by the way!
“Darling!” saith she, wildly moaningWhere the grass-grown silence lies,“Is there rest from sobs and groaning—Rest with you beyond the skies?Child of mine, so far above me!Late it waxeth—dark and late;Will the love with which I love thee,Lift me where you sit and wait—Darling! where you sit and wait?”