Again, in the hush of the evening,
When the work of the day is done,
And the binders go singing homeward
In the last red rays of the sun,
She will sit at the threshold waiting,
And her withered face lights with joy:
"Come, Johnnie," she says, as they pass her,
"Come in to the house, my boy."
Five summers ago, her Johnnie
Went out in the smile o' the morn,
Singing across the meadow,
Striding down through the corn:
He towered above the binders
Walking on either side,
And the mother's heart within her
Swelled with exultant pride.
For he was the light of the household;
His brown eyes were wells of truth,
And his face was the face of the morning,
Lit with its pure, fresh youth;
And his song rang out from the hill-tops,
Like the mellow blast of a horn,
As he strode o'er the fresh shorn meadows,
And down through the rows of corn.
But hushed were the voices of singing,
Hushed by the presence of death,
As back to the cottage they bore him--
In the noontide's scorching breath.
For the heat of the sun had slain him,
Had smitten the heart in his breast,
And he who had towered above them
Lay lower than all the rest.
The grain grows ripe in the sunshine,
And the summers ebb and flow,
And the binders stride to their labor,
And sing as they come and go;
But never again from the hill-tops
Echoes the voice like a horn;
Never up from the meadows,
Never back from the corn.
Yet the poor, crazed brain of the mother
Fancies him always near;
She is blest in her strange delusion,
For she knoweth no pain, no fear:
And always she counts the binders
As they pass her cottage door;
Are they six, she counts them seven:
Are they seven, she counts one more.
1870
[TRUST]
Once Pain beat on my heart,
And well-nigh killed it.
I shuddered at the smart,
But said, "God willed it."
And down and down again,
With awful power,
Fell the great hand of Pain,
Hour after hour.
While, like a mighty flail,
The fierce blows hurt me,
I cried, "God doth prevail:
He'll not desert me."
Blow upon cruel blow,
The great hand gave me,
Yet I cried, "He doth know,
And he will save me."
I did not loudly cry,
And ask God's reason;
I knew He'd tell me why,
In his own season.
"In His good time," I said,
In trusting blindness,
And I was not afraid
To wait his kindness.