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On her son’s Bible; with a trembling hand 
She open’d it, scarce knowing what she did, 
And hurriedly from text to text she glanced. 
But th’ abstracted mind no import gave 
To threat’ning, or to promise; both alike 
Fell unregarded; till, as with a spell, 
These solemn verses fix’d both eye and soul: 
‘ Brethren, I would not have ye ignorant 
Concerning them that sleep, that ye weep not 
Even as others do which have no hope; 
For if we do believe that Jesus died 
And rose again, even so them also 
Which sleep in Jesus, God will bring with Him.’ 
She read them o’er and o’er, until it seem’d 
To her excited mind as if a voice, 
‘ A still, small voice,’ did breathe them in her ear. 
She knew that he so slept , he—whom she mourn’d, 
Then wherefore thus in hopeless sorrow grieve ? 
“ The rock was smitten, — tears, soft, healing tears, 
Gush’d from her aged eyes; she knelt, she pray’d,— 
Pray’d from her inmost heart; and she did find, 
By the sweet hopes which dawn’d upon her heart, 
The earnest of an answer ere she rose. 
Hard task was hers, and slow was she to learn, 
