The storm in the forest is rending and sweeping;
While tree after tree bows its stately green head;
The flowerets beneath them are bending and weeping;
And leaves, torn and trembling, all round them are spread.
The bird that had roamed, till she thinks her benighted,
Dismayed, hastens back to her home in the wood;
And flags not a wing, till her bosom, affrighted,
Has laid its warm down o'er her own little brood.
And they, since that fond one so quickly has found them,
To shelter their heads from the rain and the blast,
Shall fearless repose, while the bolts burst around them;
And lie calm and safe, till the darkness is past.
Hast thou, too, not felt, when the tempest was drearest,
And rending thy covert, or shaking thy rest,
Thine own blessed angel that moment the nearest—
Thy screen in his pinion—thy shield in his breast?
When clouds frowned the darkest, and perils beset thee,
Till each prop of earth seemed to bend, or to break,
Did e'er thy good angel turn off, and forget thee?
The mother her little ones, then, may forsake!
Ah, no! thou shalt feel thy protector the surer—
The sun, in returning, more cheering and warm;
And all things around thee, seem fresher and purer,
And touched with new glory, because of the storm!