Receiving Sight.

In hours of meditation fraught
    With mem'ries of departed days,
Comes oft a tender, loving thought
    Of one who shared our youthful plays.

In gayest sports and pleasures rife
    Whose happy nature reveled so,
That on her ardent, joyous life
    A shadow lay, we did not know;

And bade her look one summer night
    Up to the sky that seemed to hold,
In dying sunset splendor bright,
    All hues of sapphire, red, and gold.

How strange the spell that mystified
    Us all, and hushed our wonted glee,
As sadly her sweet voice replied,
    "Why, don't you know I cannot see?"

Too true! those eyes bereft of sight
    No blemish bare, no drop-serene,
But nothing in this world of light
    And beauty they had ever seen.


A dozen years in gentle ruth
    Their impress lent to brow and cheek,
When precious words of sacred truth
    Led her the Saviour's face to seek.

Responsive unto earnest prayers
    Commingling love and penitence,
A blessing came - not unawares -
    In new and strange experience.

And all was light, as Faith's clear eye
    A brighter world than ours divined;
For never clouds obscured the sky
    That she could see, while we were blind.

Oh, it must be an awful thing
    To be shut out from light of day! -
From summer's grace, and bloom of spring
    In gladness words cannot portray.

But haply into every heart
    May enter that Celestial Light
That doth to life's dark ways impart
    A radiance hid from mortal sight.