I had sat three nights by the child – I could not watch her for four -
My brain had begun to reel – I felt I could do it no more.
That was my sleeping night, but I thought that it would never pass.
There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter of hail on the glass,
and there was a phantom cry that I heard as I tost about,
the motherless bleat of a lamb in the storm and the darkness without;
my sleep was broken besides with dreams of the dreadful knife
and fears for our delicate Emmie who scarce would escape with her life;
then in the gray of the morning it seemed she stood by me and smiled,
and the doctor came at his hour, and we went to see to the child.