I Laid Me Down And Slept

(Ps. 3 5.)                                         Dark was the midnight hour,     And wild with storm. Nor moon nor pitying star     Gleamed through the inky darkness from afar;     And Earth seemed reeling blindly to her doom,     As reels some stout ship thro' the midnight gloom,     What time the tempest and the waves have power.                                         I stood alone that night,     And stretched my chill hands tow'rd the rayless sky,     And heard the wrathful winds go shrieking by,     And thought of one, whose weary feet from far     Were journeying homeward thro' that night's wild war,     Stricken with dire Consumption's deadly blight                                         "Oh! feeble, woman's hands     Outstretched in anguish thro' the enshrouding dark,     Ye cannot reach that far-off, struggling bark     That seems so lashed and beaten by the storm;     Ye cannot clasp that fever-stricken form,     And lead him home across the cold, wet sands!                                         "But thou canst kneel and pray,     Oh, burdened one! - Thy Father, through the night     Can hear thy prayer! - Thy tears fall in His sight!     Call e'er so faintly, He thy voice can hear!     Then close the door, and pray; - thy Lord is near -     Is near to thee, and near to him alway!"                                         Thus spake the voice of Love; -     And, kneeling there, in God's own gracious ear     I whispered all my anguish and my fear,     Then laid me down, and slept, and saw no more     The night's black pall, or heard the sullen roar     Of battling storms that 'mid the darkness strove.                                         I slept, and woke at length,     Strengthened, sustained. Another day, I knew     That he had been sustained and strengthened too;     And when, at length, his fevered hand I pressed,     I blessed the love that so had brought him rest,     And me, for added sorrows, added strength.