We go on our way together,
Baby, and dog, and I;
Three merry companions,
'Neath any sort of sky;
Blue as her pretty eyes are,
Or gray, like his dear old tail;
Be it windy, or cloudy, or stormy,
Our courage does never fail.
Sometimes the snow lies thickly,
Under the hedge-row bleak;
Then baby cries "Pretty, pretty,"
The only word she can speak.
Sometimes two rivers of water
Run down the muddy lane;
Then dog leaps backwards and forwards
Barking with might and main.
Baby's a little lady,
Dog is a gentleman brave:
If he had two legs as you have
He'd kneel to her like a slave;
As it is he loves and protects her,
As dog and gentleman can;
I'd rather be a kind doggie
I think, than a brute of a man.
THE MOTHERLESS CHILD
She was going home down the lonely street,
A widow-woman with weary feet
And weary eyes that seldom smiled:
She had neither mother, sister, nor child.
She earned her bread with a patient heart,
And ate it quietly and apart,
In her silent home from day to day,
No one to say her "ay," or "nay."
She was going home without care to haste;
What should she haste for? On she paced
Through the snowy night so bleak and wild,
When she thought she heard the cry of a child,
A feeble cry, not of hunger or pain,
But just of sorrow. It came again.
She stopped—she listened—she almost smiled—
"That sounds like a wail of a motherless child."
A house stood open—no soul was there—
Her dull, tired feet grew light on the stair;
She mounted—entered. One bed on the floor,
And Something in it: and close by the door,
Watching the stark form, stretched out still,
Ignorant knowing not good nor ill,
But only a want and a misery wild,
Crouched the dead mother's motherless child.
What next? Come say what would you have done
Dear children playing about in the sun,
Or sitting by pleasant fireside warm,
Hearing outside the howling storm?
The widow went in and she shut the door,
She stayed by the dead an hour or more—
And when she went home through the night so wild,
She had in her arms a sleeping child.
Now she is old and feeble and dull,
But her empty heart is happy and full
If her crust be hard and her cottage poor
There's a young foot tripping across the floor,
Young hands to help her that never tire,
And a young voice singing beside the fire;
And her tired eyes look as if they smiled,—
Childless mother and motherless child.
THE WREN'S NEST
I took the wren's nest;—
Heaven forgive me!
Its merry architects so small
Had scarcely finished their wee hall,
That empty still and neat and fair
Hung idly in the summer air.
The mossy walls, the dainty door,
Where Love should enter and explore,
And Love sit caroling outside,
And Love within chirp multiplied;—
I took the wren's nest;—
Heaven forgive me!
How many hours of happy pains
Through early frosts and April rains,
How many songs at eve and morn
O'er springing grass and greening corn,
Before the pretty house was made!
One little minute, only one,
And she'll fly back, and find it—gone!
I took the wren's nest;—
Bird, forgive me!
Thou and thy mate, sans let, sans fear,
Ye have before you all the year,
And every wood holds nooks for you,
In which to sing and build and woo
One piteous cry of birdish pain—
And ye'll begin your life again,
Forgetting quite the lost, lost home
In many a busy home to come—
But I?—Your wee house keep I must
Until it crumble into dust.
I took the wren's nest:
God forgive me!
A CHILD'S SMILE
A child's smile—nothing more;
Quiet and soft and grave, and seldom seen,
Like summer lightning o'er,
Leaving the little face again serene.
I think, boy well-beloved,
Thine angel, who did grieve to see how far
Thy childhood is removed
From sports that dear to other children are,
On this pale cheek has thrown
The brightness of his countenance, and made
A beauty like his own—
That, while we see it, we are half afraid,
And marvel, will it stay?
Or, long ere manhood, will that angel fair,
Departing some sad day,
Steal the child-smile and leave the shadow care?
Nay, fear not. As is given
Unto this child the father watching o'er,
His angel up in heaven
Beholds Our Father's face for evermore.
And he will help him bear
His burthen, as his father helps him now;
So he may come to wear
That happy child-smile on an old man's brow.
OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY
A little bird flew my window by,
'Twixt the level street and the level sky,
The level rows of houses tall,
The long low sun on the level wall
And all that the little bird did say
Was, "Over the hills and far away."
A little bird sang behind my chair,
From the level line of corn-fields fair,
The smooth green hedgerow's level bound
Not a furlong off—the horizon's bound,
And the level lawn where the sun all day
Burns:—"Over the hills and far away."
A little bird sings above my bed,
And I know if I could but lift my head
I would see the sun set, round and grand,
Upon level sea and level sand,
While beyond the misty distance gray
Is "Over the hills and far away."
I think that a little bird will sing
Over a grassy mound, next spring,
Where something that once was me, ye'll leave
In the level sunshine, morn and eve:
But I shall be gone, past night, past day,
Over the hills and far away.