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Other than this poor sod affords, except from God alone.*
And yet their childlike faith in Him forbids each anxious
fear,
For though they know their brethren far, they feel their
Father near.
With patient, but with longing hearts, they wait the coming
spring ;
Even to this barren wilderness new pleasures doth she bring.
True, here she comes not garlanded with the bright flowers
she loves,
And drawn by throngs of singing birds, like Venus by her
doves ;
But smoother seas and brighter skies her gentle heralds are,
And yet more welcome still the news she brings from friends
afar.
* In the autumn the single wharfs are often separated from each other
by the tide, and in the winter, the ice sometimes cuts them off from the
mainland for weeks together. The isolation of the Halligs is most deeply
felt in case of sickness. They are then obliged to send across the oozy
flats, a distance of twenty or thirty miles, for medical advice and attend-
ance, but even this is possible only in favorable weather. — Weigelt, die
Nordfriesischen Inseln. 20.
