Poems (Toke)/To my child in illness

by Emma Toke

TO MY CHILD IN ILLNESS.

Y child! beside thy little bed
 I sit with aching heart,
And feel with mingled grief and dread,
 Perchance we soon must part:
I gaze upon thy troubled sleep,
 Thy flushed and fevered brow;
And though that sorrow cannot weep,
 I feel what none can know.

For oh! if God should please to take
 Thy sinless spirit now,
Methinks this bursting heart would break,
 E'en while it strove to bow.
And yet my inmost wish is still
 To feel His ways are best,—
To bend me to His holy will,
 And bid each murmur rest.

But though in health I loved thee more
 Than human tongue can tell,
I never knew, till this sad hour,
 I loved thee half so well.
Thy patient smiles, thy gentleness,
 But deeper wring my heart,
And make me feel, with new distress,
 My Baby! must we part?

O God forbid! in hope I feel
 Perchance the worst is o'er,
And thou mayest live to cheer us still,
 Bright, joyous as before.
And may we strive to make that life
 Thine endless blessing prove,
Or, if thou must depart, believe
 That thou art safe above!

E.

Hastings, April 26, 1839.