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COL. HARPER P. HUNT.
God help me!—my heart is so weary, So broken with sorrow and pain,So torn with this thought that I never Can lay down the burden again.Life seems bleakly barren before me, All cheerless, and chilly, and gray;Its lights one by one have been darkened, Its roses have gone to decay.
To-day I go back to my childhood, And lifting the crape from the doorI stand in the sanctified chamber To gaze on its relics once more.And brightest and fairest and purest Of all the treasures I see,Are the worship I gave to my father, And the love that he lavished on me.His heart bent to mine as the heavens Bend down to the ocean's blue rim;While mine was the pearl-tinted chalice That offered oblation to him.
The king of my passionate childhood, He ruled every thought of my life;Ever tenderly guiding me onward, Soothing all sorrow and strife.
