16

Little Boy Blue.

July Thirteenth.

IN SHADOW.

THOU, whose precious memory needs no speech, While Love which follows it none can impart, If these poor words may find thee where thou art, What they would say, but cannot, needs must reach

Thy being's core. The grief which moans in each
And chokes its own best utterance, the smart
That stings beyond all telling, thy true heart
Will to itself with faultless prescience teach.

Small meaning may they to all else transmit;
But thou wilt in them seem to touch my hand
And seek my glance to cure the woe in it.

Even though tears be unknown in that land,

Thine eyes must fill, since, reading what is writ, What is not written thou wilt understand!

July Fourteenth.

LITTLE BOY BLUE.

NDER the haystack Little Boy Blue

UNDER

Sleeps with his head on his arm,
While voices of men and voices of maids

Are calling him over the farm.

Little Boy Blue.

Sheep in the meadows are running wild
Where poisonous herbage grows,
Leaving white tufts of downy fleece

On the thorns of the sweet wild rose.

Out in the fields where the silken corn
Its plumed head nods and bows,
Where golden pumpkins ripen below,
Trample the white-faced cows.

But no loud blast on the shining horn
Calls back the straying sheep,
And the cows may wander in hay or corn,
While their keeper lies asleep.

His roguish eyes are tightly shut;
His dimples are all at rest;

The chubby hand, tucked under his head,
By one rosy cheek is pressed.

Waken him? No. Let down the bars,
And gather the truant sheep;

Open the barnyard, and drive in the cows,
But let the little boy sleep.

For year after year we can shear the fleece,
And corn can always be sown;

But the sleep that visits Little Boy Blue

Will not come when the years have flown.

17

18

My Children.

July Fifteenth.

MY CHILDREN.

'HEY are a beauteous family,

THE

Sweet sisters and brave brothers;

Too many for one house, you see,

And so I have to let them be

In care of other mothers.

They go by other names than mine;
But names have little meaning,
They know me by some secret sign;
And roseleaf cheeks and fingers fine
Toward me come clinging, leaning.

None of them all I claim alone,

With other hearts I share them;
But this the common lot is known:
All mothers, when their babes are grown,
To the wide world must spare them.

My loveliest children never go
Out of my happy dwelling;
No mortal parentage they know,
Though on the walls "Correggio "

And "Raphael" you are spelling.

Not quite so dear as flesh and blood,
They are to me most real.

In them I see Heaven's childhood bud,
These little human stars that stud

The skies of the ideal.

My Children.

That land of glorious mystery

Whither we all are wending,

A lonely sort of Heaven will be,
If there no baby-family

Awaits my love and tending.

Windows of mansions in the skies
Must glow with infant faces,

Or somewhere else is paradise;
The lovely laughter of their eyes
Lights up all heavenly places.

My darlings! by my mother-heart
I have found, I shall find them,
Though some from me are worlds apart,
And thinking of them, tears will start
Into my eyes and blind them.

O little ones whom I have found

Among earth's green paths playing,

Though listening far behind, around,
They bring me still the sweetest sound,
Words I have heard you saying.

O little ones whom I shall see

On floors of golden glory,

I guess how fair your looks will be
When your sweet voices lisp to me
Your beautiful new story.

19

20

My Mother.

It was a little Child who swung

Wide back that City's portal,

Where hearts remain forever young;
And all things good and pure among,
Shall childhood be immortal.

July Sixteenth.

MY MOTHER.

I THINK of thee

When summer clouds are flying.

The blue beyond them lying,

Emblem of purity,

Faith, and all constancy,

Is not more true to Heaven than I to thee.

I think of thee

When all the world is resting.

And sleep my sense investing,

Sends visions bright;

And darkening night,

With all its terrors, flees at thought of thee.

I think of thee.

Within this heart, my Mother,

Thy place yields to no other.

And still and rife

Through all my life,

Shall be the memory and love of thee.