Tired Mothers "Ah," you explain, "she did not know— This babe of four Just what it signifies to go." Do you know more? Kenton Foster Murray [18 TIRED MOTHERS A LITTLE elbow leans upon your knee, But it is blessedness! A year ago I did not see it as I do to-day,— The little child that brought me only good. And if some night when you sit down to rest, I wonder so that mothers ever fret At little children clinging to their gown; 307 If I could find a little muddy boot, Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber-floor,If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot, And hear its patter in my house once more, If I could mend a broken cart to-day, To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky, Is never rumpled by a shining head; May Riley Smith [1842 MY DAUGHTER LOUISE In the light of the moon, by the side of the water, My seat on the sand and her seat on my knees, We watch the bright billows, do I and my daughter, My sweet little daughter Louise. We wonder what city the pathway of glory, That broadens away to the limitless west, Leads up to-she minds her of some pretty story And says: "To the city that mortals love best." Then I say: "It must lead to the far away city, The beautiful City of Rest." In the light of the moon, by the side of the water, She steps to the boat with a touch of his fingers, It waits, but I know that its coming will prove That it went to the walls of the wonderful city, The magical City of Love. Sonnets In the light of the moon, by the side of the water, 309 The path, as of old, reaching out in its splendor, Sweet clay to lie under the pitiful sod: But she rests, at the end of the path, in the city Homer Greene [1853 "I AM LONELY" From "The Spanish Gypsy" THE world is great: the birds all fly from me, The world is great: I tried to mount the hill And I am lonely. The world is great: the wind comes rushing by. The world is great: the people laugh and talk, And I am lonely. SONNETS George Eliot [1819-1880] From "Mimma Bella " I HAVE dark Egyptians stolen Thee away, And wilt thou come, on some far distant day, II Two springs she saw-two radiant Tuscan springs, In the new wheat, and wreaths of young vine frame Make purple pools, as if Adonis came Just there to die; and Florence scrolls her name Now, when the scented iris, straight and tall, IV Oh, rosy as the lining of a shell Were the wee hands that now are white as snows; And like pink coral, with their elfin toes, The feet that on life's brambles never fell. And with its tiny smile, adorable The mouth that never knew life's bitter sloes; And like the incurved petal of a rose The little ear, now deaf in Death's strong spell. Now, while the seasons in their, order roll, And sun and rain pour down from God's great dome, And deathless stars shine nightly overhead, Near other children, with her little doll, Sonnets She waits the wizard that will never come To wake the sleep-struck playground of the dead. VI Oh, bless the law that veils the Future's face; Or bear the beauty of the evening skies, The breeze's murmur would become the cries VIII One day, I mind me, now that she is dead, I crooned it, and-God help me!-felt no dread. Of Death's pale Isles of Twilight as they dream, The frailest of the unsubstantial forms That leave the shores that are for those that seem! XX What essences from Idumean palm, What ambergris, what sacerdotal wine, 311 What Arab myrrh, what spikenard, would be thine, If I could swathe thy memory in such balm! |