Then the Son of Mary did o’er her lean.
“Poor mother, thy tears have washed thee clean.
Thy last poor pains, they will soon be done,
And My Mother shall give thee back thy son.”
Frozen grass for a bearing bed,
A halo of frost round a woman’s head,
And pious folks who looked and said:
“A drab and her brat that are better dead.”
THE HOME-COMING
This was our house. To this we came
Lighted by love with torch aflame,
And in this chamber, door locked fast,
I held you to my heart at last.
This was our house. In this we knew
The worst that Time and Fate can do.
You left the room bare, wide the door;
You did not love me any more.
Where once the kind warm curtain hung
The spider’s ghostly cloth is flung;
The beetle and the woodlouse creep
Where once I loved your lovely sleep.
Yet so the vanished spell endures,
That this, our house, still, still is yours.
Here, spite of all these years apart,
I still can hold you to my heart!
AGE TO YOUTH
Sunrise is in your eyes, and in your heart
The hope and bright desire of morn and May.
My eyes are full of shadow, and my part
Of life is yesterday.
Yet lend my hand your hand, and let us sit
And see your life unfolding like a scroll,
Rich with illuminated blazon, fit
For your arm-bearing soul.