Is present and perpetually abides

A shadow, never, never to be displaced
By the returning substance, seen or touched,
Seen by mine eyes, or clasped in my embrace.
Absence and death how differ they! and how
Shall I admit that nothing can restore
What one short sigh so easily removed?
Death, life, and sleep, reality and thought,
Assist me, God, their boundaries to know,
O teach me calm submission to thy Will!
The Child she mourned had overstepped the
pale

Of Infancy, but still did breathe the air
That sanctifies its confines, and partook
Reflected beams of that celestial light
To all the Little-ones on sinful earth
Not unvouchsafed—a light that warmed
and cheered

-

Those several qualities of heart and mind
Which, in her own blest nature, rooted deep,
Daily before the Mother's watchful eye,
And not hers only, their peculiar charms
Unfolded, beauty, for its present self,
And for its promises to future years,
With not unfrequent rapture fondly hailed.
Have you espied upon a dewy lawn
A pair of Leverets each provoking each
To a continuance of their fearless sport,
Two separate Creatures in their several gifts
Abounding, but so fashioned that, in all

That Nature prompts them to display, their looks,

Their starts of motion and their fits of rest, An undistinguishable style appears

And character of gladness, as if Spring Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the

spirit

Of rejoicing morning were their own?
Such union, in the lovely Girl maintained
And her twin Brother, had the parent seen,
Ere, pouncing like a ravenous bird of prey,
Death in a moment parted them, and left
The Mother, in her turns of anguish, worse
Than desolate; for oft-times from the sound
Of the survivor's sweetest voice (dear child,
He knew it not) and from his happiest
looks,

Did she extract the food of self-reproach,
As one that lived ungrateful for the stay
By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed
And tottering spirit. And full oft the Boy,
Now first acquainted with distress and grief,
Shrunk from his Mother's presence, shunned
with fear

Her sad approach, and stole away to find, In his known haunts of joy where'er he might,

A more congenial object. But, as time Softened her pangs and reconciled the child To what he saw, he gradually returned,

Like a scared Bird encouraged to renew
A broken intercourse; and, while his eyes
Were yet with pensive fear and gentle awe
Turned upon her who bore him, she would
stoop

To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to spread

Faint color over both their pallid cheeks, And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed

And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air

In open fields; and when the glare of day Is gone, and twilight to the Mother's wish Befriends the observance, readily they join In walks whose boundary is the lost One's grave,

Which he with flowers had planted, finding there

Amusement, where the Mother does not

miss

Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf In prayer, yet blending with that solemn rite

Of pious faith the vanities of grief;

For such, by pitying Angels and by Spirits Transferred to regions upon which the clouds Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed Those willing tears, and unforbidden sighs, And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow,

Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace

of Heaven

As now it is, seems to her own fond heart, Immortal as the love that gave it being. William Wordsworth

SONGS FOR MY MOTHER

I

HER HANDS

My mother's hands are cool and fair,
They can do anything.
Delicate mercies hide them there
Like flowers in the spring.

When I was small and could not sleep,

She used to come to me,

And with my cheek upon her hand
How sure my rest would be.

For everything she ever touched
Of beautiful or fine,

Their memories living in her hands
Would warm that sleep of mine.

Her hands remember how they played
One time in meadow streams,-
And all the flickering song and shade
Of water took my dreams.

Swift through her haunted fingers pass
Memories of garden things;-

I dipped my face in flowers and grass
And sounds of hidden wings.

One time she touched the cloud that kissed
Brown pastures bleak and far;—

I leaned my cheek into a mist
And thought I was a star.

All this was very long ago

And I am grown; but yet
The hand that lured my slumber so
I never can forget.

For still when drowsiness comes on
It seems so soft and cool,
Shaped happily beneath my cheek,
Hollow and beautiful.

II

HER WORDS

My mother has the prettiest tricks
Of words and words and words.
Her talk comes out as smooth and sleek
As breasts of singing birds.

She shapes her speech all silver fine
Because she loves it so.

And her own eyes begin to shine

To hear her stories grow.