Ah me! the pathos of the thought!
I had not deemed she wanted aught; Yet what a tenderer charm it wrought!
I know not if she marked the flame That lit my cheek, but not from shame, When one sweet image dimly came.
There was a murmur soft and low; White folds of cambric, parted slow; And little fingers played with snow!
How far my fancy dared to stray, A lover's reverence needs not say-- Enough--the vision passed away!
Passed in a mist of happy tears, While something in my tranced ears Hummed like the future in a seer's!
A Mother's Wail
My babe! my tiny babe! my only babe!
My single rose-bud in a crown of thorns!
My lamp that in that narrow hut of life, Whence I looked forth upon a night of storm!
Burned with the lustre of the moon and stars!
My babe! my tiny babe! my only babe!
Behold the bud is gone! the thorns remain!
My lamp hath fallen from its niche--ah, me!
Earth drinks the fragrant flame, and I am left Forever and forever in the dark!
My babe! my babe! my own and only babe!
Where art thou now? If somewhere in the sky An angel hold thee in his radiant arms, I challenge him to clasp thy tender form With half the fervor of a mother's love!
Forgive me, Lord! forgive my reckless grief!
Forgive me that this rebel, selfish heart Would almost make me jealous for my child, Though thy own lap enthroned him. Lord, thou hast So many such! I have--ah! had but one!
O yet once more, my babe, to hear thy cry!
O yet once more, my babe, to see thy smile!
O yet once more to feel against my breast Those cool, soft hands, that warm, wet, eager mouth, With the sweet sharpness of its budding pearls!
But it must never, never more be mine To mark the growing meaning in thine eyes, To watch thy soul unfolding leaf by leaf, Or catch, with ever fresh surprise and joy, Thy dawning recognitions of the world.
Three different shadows of thyself, my babe, Change with each other while I weep. The first, The sweetest, yet the not least fraught with pain, Clings like my living boy around my neck, Or purrs and murmurs softly at my feet!
Another is a little mound of earth; That comes the oftenest, darling! In my dreams, I see it beaten by the midnight rain, Or chilled beneath the moon. Ah! what a couch For that which I have shielded from a breath That would not stir the violets on thy grave!
The third, my precious babe! the third, O Lord!
Is a fair cherub face beyond the stars, Wearing the roses of a mystic bliss, Yet sometimes not unsaddened by a glance Turned earthward on a mother in her woe!
This is the vision, Lord, that I would keep Before me always. But, alas! as yet, It is the dimmest and the rarest, too!
O touch my sight, or break the cloudy bars That hide it, lest I madden where I kneel!
Our Willie
'T was merry Christmas when he came, Our little boy beneath the sod; And brighter burned the Christmas flame, And merrier sped the Christmas game, Because within the house there lay A shape as tiny as a fay-- The Christmas gift of God!
In wreaths and garlands on the walls The holly hung its ruby balls, The mistletoe its pearls; And a Christmas tree's fantastic fruits Woke laughter like a choir of flutes From happy boys and girls.
For the mirth, which else had swelled as shrill As a school let loose to its errant will, Was softened by the thought, That in a dim hushed room above A mother's pains in a mother's love Were only just forgot.
The jest, the tale, the toast, the glee, All took a sober tone; We spoke of the babe upstairs, as we Held festival for him alone.
When the bells rang in the Christmas morn, It scarcely seemed a sin to say That they rang because that babe was born, Not less than for the sacred day.
Ah! Christ forgive us for the crime Which drowned the memories of the time In a merely mortal bliss!
We owned the error when the mirth Of another Christmas lit the hearth Of every home but this.
When, in that lonely burial-ground, With every Christmas sight and sound Removed or shunned, we kept A mournful Christmas by the mound Where little Willie slept!
Ah, hapless mother! darling wife!
I might say nothing more, And the dull cold world would hold The story of that precious life As amply told!
Shall we, shall you and I, before That world's unsympathetic eyes Lay other relics from our store Of tender memories?
What could it know of the joy and love That throbbed and smiled and wept above An unresponsive thing?
And who could share the ecstatic thrill With which we watched the upturned bill Of our bird at its living spring?
Shall we tell how in the time gone by, Beneath all changes of the sky, And in an ordinary home Amid the city's din, Life was to us a crystal dome, Our babe the flame therein?
Ah! this were jargon on the mart; And though some gentle friend, And many and many a suffering heart, Would weep and comprehend, Yet even these might fail to see What we saw daily in the child-- Not the mere creature undefiled, But the winged cherub soon to be.
That wandering hand which seemed to reach At angel finger-tips, And that murmur like a mystic speech Upon the rosy lips, That something in the serious face Holier than even its infant grace, And that rapt gaze on empty space, Which made us, half believing, say, "Ah, little wide-eyed seer! who knows But that for you this chamber glows With stately shapes and solemn shows?"
Which touched us, too, with vague alarms, Lest in the circle of our arms We held a being less akin To his parents in a world of sin Than to beings not of clay: How could we speak in human phrase, Of such scarce earthly traits and ways, What would not seem A doting dream, In the creed of these sordid days?
No! let us keep Deep, deep, In sorrowing heart and aching brain, This story hidden with the pain, Which since that blue October night When Willie vanished from our sight, Must haunt us even in our sleep.
In the gloom of the chamber where he died, And by that grave which, through our care, From Yule to Yule of every year, Is made like Spring to bloom; And where, at times, we catch the sigh As of an angel floating nigh, Who longs but has not power to tell That in that violet-shrouded cell Lies nothing better than the shell Which he had cast aside-- By that sweet grave, in that dark room, We may weave at will for each other's ear, Of that life, and that love, and that early doom, The tale which is shadowed here: To us alone it will always be As fresh as our own misery; But enough, alas! for the world is said, In the brief "Here lieth" of the dead!
Address Delivered at the Opening of the New Theatre at Richmond
A Prize Poem
A fairy ring Drawn in the crimson of a battle-plain-- From whose weird circle every loathsome thing And sight and sound of pain Are banished, while about it in the air, And from the ground, and from the low-hung skies, Throng, in a vision fair As ever lit a prophet's dying eyes, Gleams of that unseen world That lies about us, rainbow-tinted shapes With starry wings unfurled, Poised for a moment on such airy capes As pierce the golden foam Of sunset's silent main-- Would image what in this enchanted dome, Amid the night of war and death In which the armed city draws its breath, We have built up!
For though no wizard wand or magic cup The spell hath wrought, Within this charmed fane, we ope the gates Of that divinest Fairy-land, Where under loftier fates Than rule the vulgar earth on which we stand, Move the bright creatures of the realm of thought.
Shut for one happy evening from the flood That roars around us, here you may behold-- As if a desert way Could blossom and unfold A garden fresh with May-- Substantialized in breathing flesh and blood, Souls that upon the poet's page Have lived from age to age, And yet have never donned this mortal clay.
A golden strand Shall sometimes spread before you like the isle Where fair Miranda's smile Met the sweet stranger whom the father's art Had led unto her heart, Which, like a bud that waited for the light, Burst into bloom at sight!
Love shall grow softer in each maiden's eyes As Juliet leans her cheek upon her hand, And prattles to the night.
Anon, a reverend form, With tattered robe and forehead bare, That challenge all the torments of the air, Goes by!
And the pent feelings choke in one long sigh, While, as the mimic thunder rolls, you hear The noble wreck of Lear Reproach like things of life the ancient skies, And commune with the storm!
Lo! next a dim and silent chamber where, Wrapt in glad dreams in which, perchance, the Moor Tells his strange story o'er, The gentle Desdemona chastely lies, Unconscious of the loving murderer nigh.
Then through a hush like death Stalks Denmark's mailed ghost!
And Hamlet enters with that thoughtful breath Which is the trumpet to a countless host Of reasons, but which wakes no deed from sleep; For while it calls to strife, He pauses on the very brink of fact To toy as with the shadow of an act, And utter those wise saws that cut so deep Into the core of life!
Nor shall be wanting many a scene Where forms of more familiar mien, Moving through lowlier pathways, shall present The world of every day, Such as it whirls along the busy quay, Or sits beneath a rustic orchard wall, Or floats about a fashion-freighted hall, Or toils in attics dark the night away.