Anticipation.

Around the window-lattice hung
The naked leafless trees;
And howling through the branches came
The chill November breeze.

And thick and fast the shadows flew,
Like ghosts about the room,
As if no happy thought should break
The wintry twilight's gloom.

Beside a cheerful glowing hearth,
A woman sat and smiled;
While bright before her vision rose
What was to be her child.

And still she thought of what its lot,
Or course in life might be,
Long, long before its infant smile,
Had lighted up her knee.

She thought of joys and gladnesses
Connected with its life;
page 32 And then of sin and suffering,
Of peril, pain, and strife.

The pleasures of its infancy,
The cares of riper years,
And all the host of human ills
That throng this vale of tears.

How graciously our Saviour once,
Assumed a form of clay,
And lived a life of suffering here,
'Midst creatures of a day.

And died a shameful death, that when
Our last day here was come,
We, formed in God's own image, may
Share in that purchased home.

Thus far and wide her thoughts did roam,
Through realms of empty space;
But still her mind's eye seemed to rest
On one sweet childish face.

And 'midst those spirits bright that wait
Their summons from the throne,
One still seemed fairer than the rest,
Her own expected one.

At midnight, mingled sounds were heard
Of weeping and of mirth;
One more was added to the list
Of mortals here on earth.

page 33

Already she begins to feel
A mother's anxious care;
And for her first-born offers up
Her inmost soul in prayer.