Whereof each thread is to this beating heart As a peculiar darling? Lo, the flies Hum o'er him! lo, a feather from the crow Falls in his parted lips! Lo, his dead eyes See not the raven! Lo, the worm, the worm, Creeps from his festering corse? My God! my God! O Lord, Thou doest well. I am content. The soiléd tools of labor. Let him wash Of corporal travail! Lord, if he must die, gavest! Sidney Dobell MOTHER AND SON BRIGHTLY for him the future smiled, The world was all untried; He had been a boy, almost a child, And you saw him young and strong and fair But yesterday depart; And you now know he is lying there Shot to death through the heart! Alas, for the step so proud and true And to come, as they brought him back! One shining curl from that bright young head, Is all that you have to keep in his stead You may claim of his beauty and his youth It is not much with which to stanch It is not much with which to dry Yet he has not lived and died in vain, He has left a name without a stain For your tears to wash away. And evermore shall your life be blest, Since you gave for your country's good the best God ever gave to you! Phoebe Cary MOTHERHOOD MOTHER of Christ long slain, forth glided she, Following the children joyously astir Under the cedars and the olive-tree, Pausing to let their laughter float to her. Each voice an echo of a voice more dear, She saw a little Christ in every face. When lo! another woman, passing near, Yearned o'er the tender life that filled the place, And Mary sought the woman's hand, and said: "I know thee not, yet know thee memory tossed And what hath led thee here, as I am led These bring to thee a child beloved and lost." "How radiant was my little one! And He was fair, Yea fairer than the fairest sun, And like its rays through amber spun His sun-bright hair, Still, I can see it shine and shine!" "Even so," the woman said, "was mine." "His ways were ever darling ways," And Mary smiled, "So soft and clinging! Glad relays Of love were all his precious days My little child Was like an infinite that gleamed." "Even so was mine," the woman dreamed. Then whispered Mary: "Tell me, thou Of thine!" And she: "Oh, mine was rosy as a bough Blooming with roses, sent, somehow, To bloom for me! His balmy fingers left a thrill Within my breast that warms me still." Then gazed she down some wilder, darker hour And said, when Mary questioned knowing not: "Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?" "I am the mother of Iscariot." Agnes Lee |