Katydid's Poems

by Kate Slaughter McKinney

To Mother.

I heard a song last night, mother,

A song you used to sing,

When like a little bird, mother,

With weak and unfledged wing,

I played about your flowing gown

Contented with your smile,

Though all the world should cast a frown

Upon your happy child.

The song I heard last night, mother,

Came floating through the door

As if some angel voice, mother,

Had sung it oft before;

But, O! I missed the patient pause,

The low accustomed tone,

I turned away heart-sick—because

The voice was not your own.

Those dear old songs you used to sing,

That made my heart-beats rhyme,

Have bubbled up from memory’s spring,

Ah! many and many a time.

When thirsty or with thought oppressed,

When tired of the sunshine,

When longing for the shade and rest,

I hear those songs of thine.

They’re just as low and sweet to-day

As when I heard them first;

And though I am so far away,

The field glass though reversed,

Holds still a picture that I love,

Three faces—four with mine—

Another looks from heaven above,

A little face—like thine.

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The Broken Heart.
TO MISS F. B.

HE brought me a heart one morning,

Brought me a heart to mend;

And he said (I shall never forget it)

“’Twas broken by your friend.”

“The wound will grow deeper and wider,”

He said in a sadder tone,

“Unless you devise some method

To place it against her own.”

Then I crept away to my chamber,

But a thought, like a silver stream,

Kept trickling along the wayside

That bordered my restless dream.

So I hid this heart in a lily,

When the dawn began to break—

In a beautiful water lily,

That grew on the rim of a lake.

Yes, down on a snowy pillow,

In a cradle warm and deep,

I laid the little foundling,

And a ripple rocked it to sleep.

The dawn came up with blushes,

And shook from her gown the dew;

And I heard the song of the skylark,

As into the clouds he flew.

But the heart dreamed on in the lily

And I went at the close of day,

And found that my little treasure

Was chilled by the foam and spray.

So I warmed it upon my bosom,

Then cradled it back on the wave;

But I feared that the lily’s offspring

Was doomed to a watery grave.

So I watched till the daylight vanished

Through the sunset’s purple bars,

Till the night climbed over the willows,

And lit up the moon and stars.

I thought I heard your footstep,

And low in the reeds and grass

I crouched, that there, unnoticed,

I might behold you pass.

You came in your regal beauty,

And, bright as the weird fire flies

That illumined the waving rushes,

I saw your glorious eyes.

You kneeled on the mossy margin—

I counted the lilies there;

Two buds and a creamy blossom

Were fastened in your hair.

Another was drawn from the water,

And, pushing the reeds apart,

I saw ’twas the very lily

Wherein I had hidden the heart.

You pinned it low down on your bodice,

Half hidden it lay in the lace,

And you passed by—“a two-fold existence,”

A new light enriching your face.

And though I am absent and distant,

Methinks I can still hear the tone

Of a heart that, with happy emotion,

Is beating, aye! close to your own.

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A Year Ago.
IN MEMORY OF MY DEAR FRIEND, SCOTTA P. PROCTOR.

A year ago I held in mine her hand,

And felt the pulses quicken and dissolve,

While o’er her face a light from heaven’s own land

Seemed all the mystery of death to solve.

She raised her weary eyes to mine and sighed—

Sighed as a flow’r o’er which the storm clouds bend

When long the promised sunlight is denied,

And cold and heavy rains from heaven descend.

She tried to speak; I knelt beside her bed,

That one last wish she might to me impart;

A whisper came, and then the spirit fled

Like some sweet thought long prisoned in the heart.

A year ago I twined the lilies white

About her shroud, and with the coffin’s lace,

For she had loved them; all the long, long night

They press their waxen lips upon her face.

I heard the funeral bell toll sad and long—

My heart reverberates to-day the sound—

And then there came a prayer—a pause—a song,

And blossoms next were heaped upon a mound.

I turned aside and homeward bent my way;

Alas! the face I loved so long—not there—

Sweet memories arose to gild my day,

But sadder ones to mock my heart’s despair.

Where is she now? you think the grave can hide

A friend so true within its dungeon deep?

Ah! no; she walketh ever by my side,

And watches o’er me when I chance to sleep.

We stroll abroad oft at the twilight’s hour

To memory’s garden. Under memory’s tree

She pulls the silver mask from many a flower,

And reads its tender secrets all to me.

She guides my pen along uncertain heights,

Where unattended I could never go;

The candle of success she often lights

When the flame flickers and the wick burns low.

She leads me to the grave and says, “Not here,

But there,” and points me to the heavenly gate;

And when upon my cheek there falls a tear

(For sometimes yet my heart grows desolate),

I feel upon my face her own soft hand,

And glimpses of her robe sometimes have seen.

O, happy thought! how strong is friendship’s band,

When out of heaven an angel friend can lean.

A year ago! sad, sad that parting day,

And sadder still, the last, the long adieu.

Death called the angel of my heart away—

And now she opens heaven to my view.

May 16, 1886.

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