One Morn I Left Him In His Bed.

One morn I left him in his bed; A moment after some one said, "Your child is dying--he is dead."

We made him ready for his rest, Flowers in his hair, and on his breast His little hands together prest.

We sailed by night across the sea; So, floating from the world were we, Apart from sympathy, we Three.

The wild sea moaned, the black clouds spread Moving shadows on its bed, But one of us lay midship dead.

I saw his coffin sliding down The yellow sand in yonder town, Where I put on my sorrow's crown.

And we returned; in this drear place Never to see him face to face, I thrust aside the living race.

Mothers, who mourn with me to-day, Oh, understand me, when I say, I cannot weep, I cannot pray;

I gaze upon a hidden store, His books, his toys, the clothes he wore, And cry, "Once more, to me, once more!"

Then take, from me, this simple verse, That you may know what I rehearse-- A grief--your and my Universe!

BEFORE THE MIRROR.

Now like the Lady of Shalott, I dwell within an empty room, And through the day and through the night I sit before an ancient loom.

And like the Lady of Shalott I look into a mirror wide, Where shadows come, and shadows go, And ply my shuttle as they glide.

Not as she wove the yellow wool, Ulysses' wife, Penelope; By day a queen among her maids, But in the night a woman, she,

Who, creeping from her lonely couch, Unraveled all the slender woof; Or, with a torch, she climbed the towers, To fire the fagots on the roof!

But weaving with a steady hand The shadows, whether false or true, I put aside a doubt which asks "Among these phantoms what are you?"

For not with altar, tomb, or urn, Or long-haired Greek with hollow shield, Or dark-prowed ship with banks of oars, Or banquet in the tented field;

Or Norman knight in armor clad, Waiting a foe where four roads meet; Or hawk and hound in bosky dell, Where dame and page in secret greet;

Or rose and lily, bud and flower, My web is broidered. Nothing bright Is woven here: the shadows grow Still darker in the mirror's light!

And as my web grows darker too, Accursed seems this empty room; For still I must forever weave These phantoms by this ancient loom.