So I feel a tender pride
In my boy who dares to ride
That fierce horse of his astride,
Off into those misty lands;
And as on my breast he lies,
Dreaming in that wondrous wise,
I caress his folded eyes,
Pat his little dimpled hands.
On a time he went away,
Just a little while to stay,
And I’m not ashamed to say
I was very lonely then;
Life without him was so sad,
You can fancy I was glad
And made merry when I had
Teeny-Weeny back again!
So of evenings, after tea,
When he toddles up to me
And goes tugging at my knee.
You should hear his palfrey neigh!
You should see him prance and shy,
When, with an exulting cry,
Teeny-Weeny, vaulting high,
Plies his lash and rides away!
NELLIE
HIS listening soul hears no echo of battle,
No pæan of triumph nor welcome of fame;
But down through the years comes a little one’s prattle,
And softly he murmurs her idolized name.
And it seems as if now at his heart she were clinging
As she clung in those dear, distant years to his knee;
He sees her fair face, and he hears her sweet singing—
And Nellie is coming from over the sea.
While each patriot’s hope stays the fullness of sorrow,
While our eyes are bedimmed and our voices are low,
He dreams of the daughter who comes with the morrow
Like an angel come back from the dear long ago.
Ah, what to him now is a nation’s emotion,
And what for our love or our grief careth he?
A swift-speeding ship is a-sail on the ocean,
And Nellie is coming from over the sea!
O daughter—my daughter! when Death stands before me
And beckons me off to that far misty shore,
Let me see your loved form bending tenderly o’er me,
And feel your dear kiss on my lips as of yore.
In the grace of your love all my anguish abating,
I’ll bear myself bravely and proudly as he,
And know the sweet peace that hallowed his waiting
When Nellie was coming from over the sea.
NORSE LULLABY
THE sky is dark and the hills are white
As the storm-king speeds from the north to-night;
And this is the song the storm-king sings,
As over the world his cloak he flings:
“Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep”;
He rustles his wings and gruffly sings:
“Sleep, little one, sleep.”
On yonder mountain-side a vine
Clings at the foot of a mother pine;
The tree bends over the trembling thing,
And only the vine can hear her sing:
“Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep—
What shall you fear when I am here?
Sleep, little one, sleep.”