Changes during Sickness

I bow'd me down amid the race of life,And let the fever-spirit have its will.With wrench and screw the tissued nerves it tried,And held from sleep the strained and burning eye,So that the soft-voic'd watcher's toil was vain.Two weeks passed by, and then His healing love,Who knows the weakness of this mortal frameWhich He hath fashioned, bade me take my placeAgain among the living.Strange and newSeemed every wonted object. All aroundChange had been busy. Boldly up had sprung,Even to the eaves, the rich Convolvolus,So long with patience water'd, even and morn,Its clustering floral bells, profoundly blue,

Or crimson, fleck'd with white, thro' the broad leaves,Were redolent of beauty. So, methoughtI'd close my books, and study with the flowers,Where sang the bee; and where, for aught I knew,Might winged angels hover.Closely hidIn a dense grape-vine, was a cunning nest,Which oftimes I had visited, to strewCrumbs for the brooding mother. On that mornWhen fell disease stalk'd near me with his chain,Intent to smite me, tho' I knew it not,I had withdrawn those curtaining leaves, and metHer clear, bright eye.Now, all were fled and gone!Yes, those small eggs with gladness and with songHad travell'd forth to swell the tide of loveThat bathes Creation in its boundless sea.Oh! ever-watchful goodness, that doth workWhether we sleep, or, 'neath the weight of pain,Bow down in dreamy reverie; while time,

Unnoted, glideth onwards, nest and flowerConfess thee. Shall the thoughtless human heart,So much indebted, e'er thy praise forget,Whether beneath the sunshine or the cloud,It takes its lesson from thy page divine?