Yet, though the mother saw the change,
    No praise unto her God was given;
  No grateful incense from that heart
    Ascended up to pitying heaven.

  ’Twas midnight’s deep and silent hour,
    When nature folds her hands to sleep,
  And Angels come to bathe the flowers,
    With dewy tears they only weep.

  She heeded not the pulse of time
    That throbb’d the moments of the night,
  Nor yet the early morning’s dawn,
    That ting’d the east with rosy light.

  But with a mother’s earnest eye,
    Watch’d o’er her infant’s peaceful rest: 
  Until his gentle slumber passed,
    Then clasp’d him fondly to her breast.

  Childhood’s brief years in sin were spent;
    The stubborn knee ne’er bent in prayer;
  Those lips ne’er spake a Saviour’s name,
    “Our Father” never lingered there.

  Youth’s golden season, too, was passed
    In wanton sports and misspent time;
  And soon he stood on manhood’s verge,
    A hardened wretch, prepared for crime.

  Though so forbidding in his mein,
    He woo’d and won a gentle bride,
  Who but the closer to him clung,
    As darker rolled life’s heaving tide.

  But though an Angel shar’d the place,
    There were for him no joys at home;
  He left his mother and his wife,
    Reckless o’er earth or sea to roar.

  He stood upon a sanded deck,
    With blood-red pennon floating free,
  And with a daring bloody band,
    Rode madly o’er the foaming sea.

  The waves that lashed the coal-black hull
    Were parted oft their dead to hide;
  For ocean’s surging, billowy foam,
    Drank deeply of life’s crimson tide.

  He tossed a pointed dagger high,
    And wore a sabre by his side;
  And many a gen’rous noble one,
    Beneath his powerful arm had died.

  For bloody deeds of daring high,
    He had won a deathless fame;
  And o’er that reckless, bloody crew,
    Had gained a pirate-captain’s name.

  And though their coffers teem’d with gold,
    Their sordid souls still sighed for more: 
  And to procure the paltry trash
    They scour’d the seas from shore to shore.

  But Retribution’s hour must come;
    Vengeance cannot always sleep;
  Justice, with her glittering sword,
    Pursues them swiftly o’er the deep.

  At midnight, in a dungeon lone,
    An aged female knelt in prayer;
  But oh, her low, sepulchral tone
    Seemed fraught with anguish and despair.

  “My son,” she cried, “to morrow’s sun
    Must witness your disgraceful death;
  O, seek a dying Saviour’s love,
    E’en with your expiring breath.

  The sun of Righteousness has risen,
    And o’er my path shed golden light,
  And shone upon the narrow way,
    That ever followed leads aright.