Without the wintry sky is overcast,
The floods descend, fierce hail and rushing rain,
Whilst ever and anon the angry blast
Clutches the casement-pane.
Within our darling beats an angrier air
With piteous outstretched arms and tossing head,
Whilst we, bowed low beside his labouring bed,
Pour all our hearts in prayer.
Is this the end? The tired little hands
Fall by his side, the wild eyes close at last,
Breathless he sinks, almost we hear his sands
Of being ebbing past;
When, O miraculous! he wakes once more,
Love glowing in his glance, the while there slips
"Mother, dear Mother!" from his trembling lips,
"Dear Mother!" o'er and o'er.
He has come back, our little Fairy Child,
Back from his wanderings in the dreadful dark,
Back o'er the furious surge of fever wild,
The lost dove of our ark;
Back, slowly back o'er the dire flood's decrease
The white wings flutter, only our God knows how,
Bearing aloft the blessed olive bough
Of His compassionate peace.