Nay, but the port where my sailor went, There is the home where my thoughts are sent, AND I, I had come back to an empty nest, How I heard My father's step on that deserted ground His voice along that silence! I ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. My Child CANNOT make him dead! His fair sunshiny head Is ever bounding round my study chair; Yet when my eyes, now dim With tears, I turn to him, The vision vanishes, he is not there! I walk my parlor floor, And through the open door, I hear a footfall on the chamber stair; To give the boy a call; And then bethink me that he is not there! I thread the crowded street; A satchelled lad I meet, With the same beaming eyes and colored hair, Follow him with my eye Scarcely believing that he is not there! I know his face is hid Under the coffin-lid, Closed are his eyes, cold is his forehead fair; O'er it in prayer I knelt; Yet my heart whispers that he is not there! I cannot make him dead! When passing by the bed, So long watched over with paternal care, Seek him inquiringly Before the thought comes, that he is not there! When at the cool gray break Of day, from sleep I wake, With my first breathing of the morning air To Him who gave my boy; Then comes the sad thought that — he is not there! When at the day's calm close, I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer; I am in spirit praying For our boy's spirit, though — he is not there! - Not there!where then is he? The form I used to see Was but the raiment that he used to wear; The grave that now doth press Upon that cast-off dress Is but his wardrobe locked: he is not there! He lives! In all the past He lives nor to the last, Of seeing him again will I despair; And on his angel brow, I see it written, "Thou shalt see me there!" Yes, we all live to God! Father, Thy chastening rod So help us, Thine afflicted ones, to bear, Meeting at Thy right hand, 'Twill be our heaven to find that he is there! JOHN PIERPONT. Mother Love WILL shut these broken toys away I will take up my work once more, Man's way is hard and sore beset; Nevertheless, the way is long, And tears leap in the light of the sun; MARY CLEMMER. L' Bereaved ET me come in where you sit weeping,―aye, Let me, who have not any child to die, Weep with you for the little one whose love I have known nothing of. The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed Their pressure round your neck, the hands you used To kiss, such arms, such hands, I never knew, May I not weep with you? Fain would I be of service say something Who have no child to die. S So Tired O tired; I fain would rest; I will toil on from day to day, Bearing my cross, and only pray To follow Thee. |