312 HILL AND SHORE.
But oh ! in that solemn midnight, To find that the anchor cast
In the blood-bought promise held me To the blessed life-line fast !
That I had no swift accounting To do with a whirling brain,
Only kiss the hand outreaching, The palm with its crimson stain,
That in years agone had blest me, And covered my load of sin,
Which held not a rod to fright me But a beacon to light me in.
��HILL AND SHORE.
OH the hills ! the hills ! I am sick for the hills, With their warm brown sides so bare, Their circling arms, and their steady feet On the shadows slumbering there ;
With their reverent hands to the sky upraised As they pray on their carpets green,
Seeking evermore what the angels see In the Land still to us unseen.
A while this surge of the solemn sea,
And the moan of its deep unrest, And then I turn like a home-sick child,
Happy hills ! to your riven breast.
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