The Xenia sentinel. [volume] (Xenia [Ohio]) 1863-186?, 1863-12-22
= LOst---sOmebOdy's Child.
1r THOMAS ,rAoErrLAR.

BY THoMAs lMACEELLAR.
som1body's child is lost tonight
hear the beIlman ringi
Ans ihe earth is frozen hard and white,
And the wind has a nipping sting.
Ilnow my babes are long abed,
A tender, motherly hand
Laying blessing on every head
After their evening prayers were said
God keep the slumbering bandl
Yet somebody's child is lost, I say,
This nights0 bitterly cold,
Some innocent lamb has gone astTay
UuWiitingly from its fold.
Bellman. ho, bsllman, whose child is lost 2
And I grasp my staff and cloak;
But tie ringer over the void had oross'd
Before tardily spoke
The neighbors soon gather, and far and near
We pry into ditch. and fen,
Til, bark! an answering shout 1 hear
The rover is found again.
All metber, fond mother, your heart is light
With Joe to your bosom bound;
But many a child is lost tonight
= Who'll never, no, never be found.
Az somebody's child is lost tonight
While the wind is high and hoarse,
And the soudding ship like bird alright
Flies sbiveriDg on its course.
She suddenly drops in the yaWning deep
As never to return;
She leaps atop the Wafery steep,
A-ereaking from stem to stern.
Hold WELL good bark! for a score Of lives
Comprise thy eoStliest freight;
Else loving mothers, and maids and wives
VIII ever be desolate.
And well she holds, with a single sa1
outspTead to guide her way,
While all the furies Of the gale
Arouqd her bulvarks play.
The sailor-boy, with fearful heart,
sighs for his distant home,
And the hasty tears from bis eyolids START
And drop in the briny foam. o.
In the months agOue a father sigh'd, et
And mother trembled with fears;
But that fathers law had he defed
And be scorn'd that mothers tears.
+ The pitiless blast now moeks his grief,
And huge and hungry wave
Bears him away beyond relief
To the depths Of an ocean grave
The brand is blazing upon the hearth,
The work Of the day is done,
And the fathers heart runs over the earth
In search Of the wandering son,
"Oh { where is our pOOEbOy to-night- -
This night so bleak and wild ?"
The mother shuts her eyes to the light
And inIy prays for her child.
The busy needles ali cease their fight,
While their hearts say, "There is he ?"
They dream not he has sunken from sight
Down, down, down in the sea.
The mother may pray, and she may weep
! TIL she weep her life away,
But never more will she find the sheep
That Wilfully went astray.
Somebody's child is lost Tonight
Oh sorrow is on the day
When virgins fame is marr'd with blight
That can not be cleaused away,
An IAA4DAIA 4aullf SIT III tue EA44lly
BemOaning their hopeless shame
Would that she were safe in the tomb
With honor upon her name!
While dseked in garments Of satin and sin,
The fallen daughter, ween,
Is scorch' d with fever of heart within,
Though rsigning as walton queen.
o, mereirul Father! is this the chile
Thy hand created so fair,
With eyes where simple innocence smIea,
And coy and mEia enly 4ir3-[
Is this the promising morning flower
Fh.e Brightest it rivals among?
Is,this the. bird that sang in the. bower
With sweetest and h6errfest tongue?
Alb me this child is more than lost;
For her loW-fallen form,
On sins voluptuOus Eurges tost
VIII perish in passions storm.
And the mother may sigh, and she may weep
Till she weep her life away,
But never moro win she find tho sheep
That wiekedly went astray.
Somebody's child is lost tonight
widows only SON.
With brow as light and eye as bright
As you ever looked upon.
And be will be my staff and stay"
Her words were inly spoken
.''When am old, aud my hair is gray
And my natural strength is broken"
Her motherly soul with pride oerran
As the lad grew up to the estate Of man,
Aud she said, in her Joy,
- That nobody's boy
Gould match her paragon By a span.
Time stole along, and ier locks we're gray,
But her heart had lost is pride;
For the man had wander d so far astray,
'TWsre better her boy had died
A lo3thsome, vile, and gibbering thing,
stungby the fatal still-worm's sting,
Dssphed Of man, cont smning God,
And gHasbing at the avenging rod
WbereWith his passions soourged him sore,
TIL, fainting he could feel no nore,--
All somebody's child was lost in him