[GRANDMA WAITING.]
A TRUE EXPERIENCE.
"Still waiting, dear good grandma, for the blessed angel Death?"
"Yes waiting, only waiting to be borne across the sea,
To the home my soul's been building all these years of mystery,
Through ninety years and over now of deep and wondrous change,
Wherein I've known the heights and depths of human feeling's range,
And tried to solve the problems old of human life so strange.
******
You want to know my history, because I am so good?
Ah, child, no human life can here be fully understood.
You call me good, and what is more, a 'true and blessed saint.'
(There is illusion sweet indeed in what you child-souls paint
Before you know too much of life and feel its evil taint.)
You even picture beauties of my home across the sea
Which I never dared to hope for e'en on heights of ecstasy.
You see me sitting helpless here, blind now for many years,
Apparently so full of peace, so free from doubts and fears,—
Though never free from Memory's thought which often brings the tears,—
And you wonder where's the passion and the energy of youth,
The power that even dared to sway to evil ways forsooth.
Ah, you but see the blessed fruit of what God planted sure,
When in my years of sorrow He was whispering, 'Endure.'
You cannot see the dreadful scars which naught on earth can cure.
You cannot see the passion wild, when, 'neath the coffin lid,
Among the flowers, my children three, my precious all, were hid.
Nor can you see my conflict sore, when I went almost mad
Before the dying form of him who had loved me from a lad,
A loving husband, kind and true, as ever woman had.
But still, before my dear one died, more children came to me:
Two lovely boys, who seemed at last a recompense to be.
For sometimes it does seem as if God sends a special gift,
To be a special help and strength, the selfish clouds to lift,
Or—what, perhaps, we need as much—the wheat from chaff to sift.
Through all my lonely, widowed life I lived in their sweet ways,
And found no sacrifice too great in work for future days.
At length they were my crowning joy. I'd come again to know
The blessings of a married life—the happiest here below—
When, lo! Death seized the oldest one, my boy that I loved so.
This opened fresh the old deep wounds; but still I had much left,
For then I was not, as before, of every child bereft.
So on I went in daily life, determined to be true
To blessings that were left to me. That does one's life renew,—
Remember this, my dear one, when your grandma's gone from you.