Come like a garment. The lone widow mused
On her changed lot, yet to Jehovah's name
Gave not the praise, but when the silent moon
Moved forth all radiant, on her star-girt throne,
Uttered a heathen's gratitude, and hailed

In the deep chorus of Zidonian song
"Astarte, queen of Heaven!"

But then there came

A day of woe. That gentle boy, in whom
His mother lived, for whom alone she deemed
Time's weary heritage a blessing, died.

Wildly the tides of passionate grief broke forth,
And on the prophet of the Lord her lip
Called with indignant frenzy. So he came,
And from her bosom took the breathless clay,
And bore it to his chamber. There he knelt

In supplication that the dead might live.

He rose, and looked upon the child. His cheek
Of marble meekly on the pillow lay,

While round his polished forehead the bright curls
Clustered redundantly. So sweetly slept

Beauty and innocence in death's embrace,
It seemed a mournful thing to waken them.
Another prayer arose, and he, whose faith
Iad power o'er nature's elements, to seal
The dripping cloud, to wield the lightning's dart,
And soon, from death escaping, was to soar
On car of flame up to the throne of God,
Long, long, with laboring breast and lifted eyes,
Solicited in anguish. On the dead

Once more the prophet gazed. A rigor seemed

To settle on those features, and the hand,
In its immovable coldness, told how firm
Was the dire grasp of the insatiate grave.
The awful seer laid down his humble lip
Low to the earth, and his whole being seemed
With concentrated agony to pour

Forth in one agonizing, voiceless strife
Of intercession. Who shall dare to set
Limits to prayer, if it hath entered heaven,
And won a spirit down to its dense robe
Of earth again?

Look! look upon the boy!
There was a trembling of the parted lip,

A sob, —a shiver, — from the half-sealed eye
A flash like morning, and the soul came back
To its frail tenement.

The prophet raised

The renovated child, and on that breast

Which gave the life-stream of its infancy
Laid the fair head once more.

If ye would know

Aught of that wildering trance of ecstasy,
Go ask a mother's heart, but question not
So poor a thing as language. Yet the soul

Of her of Zarephath, in that blest hour

Believed, and with the kindling glow of faith

Turned from vain idols to the living God.

Lydia Huntley Sigourney.