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the love of Jesus dwelleth. Gently in a bed they laid her, Chafed her stiffening limbs and temples, Pour'd the warm, life-giving cordial, But what seem'd the most to cheer her, Were some words by Bertha spoken In her own, dear native language. Voice of Fatherland! it quicken'd All the heart's collapsing heart-strings, As though bath'd, and renovated In the Rhine's blue, rushing waters. * * * * * O'er the wildering waste of ocean, Moved by zeal of emigration She had ventured with her husband To this western World of promise, Rainbow-vested El-Dorado. On that dreary waste of waters He had died, and left her mourning, All unguided, unbefriended. --There the mother-sorrow found her And compell'd her by the weeping Of the new-born, to encounter With a broken-hearted welcome Life once more, which in the torrent of her utter desolation She had cast aside, contemning As a burden past endurance. --Outcast in this land of strangers, Strange of speech, and strange in manner, She had travel'd, worn and weary, Here and there, with none to aid her, Ask'd for work, and none employ'd her, Ask'd for alms, and few reliev'd her, Till at length, the wintry tempest Smote her near that blessed roof-tree. * * * * * Heavy slumber weigh'd her downward, Slumber from whence none awaketh. Yet at morn they heard her sighing, On her pillow faintly sighing, "I am ready! I am ready!" "Leonore! my child! my darling!" Then they brought the infant to her, Cleanly robed, and sweetly smiling, And the parting soul turn'd backward, And the clay-seal on the eyelids Lifted up to gaze upon it. Bertha kiss'd the little forehead, Said "_mein kind_," and lo! a shudder Of this earth's forgotten pleasure Trembled o'er the dying woman, And the white hand cold as marble Strove to raise itself in blessing, For the mother-joy was stronger That one moment, while it wrestled With the pausing king of terrors, Stronger than the king of terrors. Then they laid her icy fingers Mid the infant's budding ringlets, And the pang and grasp subsided In a smile and whispering cadence, "God, mein God, be praised!"--and silence Settled on those lips forever. * * * * * Favor'd is the habitation Where a gentle infant dwelleth, When its brightening eye revealeth The immortal part within it, And its curious wonder scanneth All its wide spread, tiny fingers, And it
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