God-beams of mercy, gleam through the dull haze;
Sunlight and soften the dark rocky ways!

Harmony pealeth o'er mountain and plain;
Alien sin-nature chimes not in refrain.

That holier season was nigh at hand
When the sympathies of the soul expand.

From the warmth and light of the fireside glow
I walked abroad o'er the glistening snow.

When a black cloud over my pathway set;
It loometh before my memory yet.

A rough-fashioned sleigh with its motley load,
Glideth quickly over the churchyard road.

The rude pine coffin is set on a stone;
Hastily earth from its earth-bed is thrown.

Lowered the dead; heavy shovels ply fast;
A few brief moments—the vision hath passed.

Nought of lamenting; no vestige of woe;
Just a dark heap, a foul blot on the snow.

Entering the gateway, I reasoned why?
Questioned the scene with a tear-bedimmed eye.

"Only our hired boy!" He carelessly turned;
My innermost soul in my bosom burned.

II.

"Only your hired boy! yet nurtured in wealth,
Gifted of beauty, and glowing with health.

"Sunned in the rays of an era sublime,
Lulled in the lap of a Christian clime.

"Suddenly fatherless, suddenly poor;
Brave mother-hands keeping want from the door.

"Oh! how the widowed heart clung to that child,
Her one bright star on the darkening wild.

"Hard for new toilers, though strong be the will;
Weary the way up the steep, rugged hill.

"Friendship in fortune is hollow at best;
Sunset of splendor, illuming the west,

"Sinketh unseen 'fore the blackness of night,—
Her spirit reached forth to the land of light;

"She folded her boy to her aching heart,
And you—you promised to do your part.

"With a calm, sweet smile on her lips she died,
And you drew the child from his mother's side.

"Oh! well for him had he sunk to his rest,
Pillowed in peace on that motionless breast.

"Far better his fate had his young eyes closed,
Mantled in shroud where his mother reposed.

III.

"You took him home. Ah what record of shame!
To the falsity of a home in name.

"Oh stony heart! hard as his frozen bed;
Cold as the snow-drifts which sweep o'er his head.

"Your baby secure, in infancy blessed;
Warm-cradled as bird in the parent nest.

"Chilled by the coldest of winter's cold days;
Fevered by heat of the sun's hottest rays.

"Lodged in an outhouse, exposed to the sky;
Beasts underneath in a shelter all dry.

"Rest for the horses, but work for the slave;—
Tyrant! thy betters were death and the grave.

"Sick—yes! he told you with faltering breath;
Lazy you termed it, you beat him in death.

"Bridge you the river he crossed to atone?
Drown you with orgies the orphan's sad moan?

"Nay! for those wailings will ring in your ear;
Haunt your night visions, and follow your bier.

"Whilst that mighty Power which hath mother-love given
Will surely unite what asunder is riven.

"And fill with choice music the one silent tone,
By yielding to mother-love all of its own."

IV.

Ponder life's teachings; con each of them well;
Man, made in God's image, should earth be a hell?

Where were the justice if earth were our all!
Where, if life's limits were girt of the pall!

Yes! Thou didst hear it; that bitter cold night
When the ground was crisp with its coat of white.

Thou sentest Thy angels to bear him away
From his storm-beaten garb of fragile clay.

Tired-out, aching limbs! weary frozen feet!
Ceaseless, toilsome toil! rest—Ah sweet! how sweet!

No mourner knelt down by that lowly bed;
No kindly hand pillowed that dying head.

Nought, save the starlights of loftier space
Beamed tenderly over that still, pale face.

What matter! the billows may rage and foam,
The heaven-bound soul will reach its home.

What matter! the sorrows of earth are o'er;
He hath landed safe on love's native shore.

Where glory-lit mansions resound with joy;
For the mother who lost, hath found her boy.

And glad Hallelujahs bright seraphim sing;
For the once hired boy is a crownÈd king.