Child.

XXVI

THE SICK CHILD

MOTHER, lay your hand on my brow!
O mother, mother, where am I now?
Why is the room so gaunt and great?
Why am I lying awake so late?

Mother. Fear not at all: the night is still.
Nothing is here that means you ill-
Nothing but lamps the whole town through,
And never a child awake but you.

Child.

Mother, mother, speak low in my ear,
Some of the things are so great and near,
Some are so small and far away,

I have a fear that I cannot say.

What have I done, and what do I fear,
And why are you crying, mother dear?

Mother. Out in the city, sounds begin;

Thank the kind God, the carts come in!
An hour or two more and God is so kind,
The day shall be blue in the window-blind,
Then shall my child go sweetly asleep,
And dream of the birds and the hills of sheep.

IN MEMORIAM F. A. S.

ET, O stricken heart, remember, O remember

YET

How of human days he lived the better part.
April came to bloom and never dim December
Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart.

Doomed to know not Winter, only Spring, a being
Trod the flowery April blithely for awhile,
Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing,

Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile.

Came and stayed and went, and now when all is finished, You alone have crossed the melancholy stream, Yours the pang, but his, O his, the undiminished Undecaying gladness, undeparted dream.

All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason,

Shame, dishonour, death, to him were but a name. Here, a boy, he dwelt through all the singing season And ere the day of sorrow departed as he came.

DAVOS, 1881.

XXVIII

TO MY FATHER

EACE and her huge invasion to these shores
Puts daily home; innumerable sails
Dawn on the far horizon and draw near;

her to the

Innumerable loves, uncounted hopes

To our wild coasts, not darkling now, approach:
Not now obscure, since thou and thine are there,
And bright on the lone isle, the foundered reef,
The long, resounding foreland, Pharos stands.

These are thy works, O father, these thy crown;
Whether on high the air be pure, they shine
Along the yellowing sunset, and all night
Among the unnumbered stars of God they shine;
Or whether fogs arise and far and wide
The low sea-level drown-each finds a tongue
And all night long the tolling bell resounds:
So shine, so toll, till night be overpast,
Till the stars vanish, till the sun return,
And in the haven rides the fleet secure.

In the first hour, the seaman in his skiff

Moves through the unmoving bay, to where the town Its earliest smoke into the air upbreathes

TO MY FATHER

And the rough hazels climb along the beach. To the tugg'd oar the distant echo speaks. The ship lies resting, where by reef and roost Thou and thy lights have led her like a child.

This hast thou done, and I—can I be base?
I must arise, O father, and to port
Some lost, complaining seaman pilot home.

XXIX

IN THE STATES

ITH half a heart I wander here

WITH

As from an age gone

by

A brother-yet though young in years,
An elder brother, I.

You speak another tongue than mine,
Though both were English born.
I towards the night of time decline
You mount into the morn.

Youth shall grow great and strong and free,
But age must still decay:

To-morrow for the States- for me,
England and Yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO.