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The olive leaf—the type of peace
All fragrant, fresh, and fair.
With pain her weary wing she stretch'd
Over the billows wide,
And oft her panting bosom dropp'd
Upon the briny tide.
The image of her absent mate,
That cheer'd her as she strove with fate,
Grew darker on her eye;
It seem'd as if she heard him mourn,
For one who never must return,
In broken minstrelsey.
Yet ere her pinions ceas'd their flight,
Or clos'd her eye in endless night,
A hand the weary wanderer prest
And drew her to the ark of rest.
Oh! welcome to thy peaceful home,
No more o'er that wild waste to roam.
When from this cell of pain and woe,
Like that weak dove my soul shall go,
And trembling still her flight shall urge,
Along this dark world's doubtful verge
O'er the cold flood, and foaming surge,
Then may the shrinking stranger spy
A pierc'd hand stretching from the sky,
