LIKE some small child who waking in the night,
Half dazed with dreams, dim phantom shapes espies,
Knowing one refuge only from his fright,
And groping toward it to his mother cries,—
E'en thus do I, when sometimes dreams of sense
Creep up, with vague imagined horror shod,
O'erwhelmed with fear, in human impotence,
Turn quickly to our Father-Mother God.
And like a child who finds his mother's arms
So warm, so dear, so safe from shadow things,
And laughs with her to see his wild alarms
Were nothing but a curtain's flutterings,—
I too would come to Thee, O Love divine,
Helpless myself, but sure of help in Thee.
And oh, how baseless seems that fear of mine,
As tenderly Thine allness dawns on me!
