When they shall come, and shall speak your name,
In honor, amid my gloom,
Then will I fight as a she-wolf fights,
To guard them against the doom;
For you were my children before them,
Your dreams shall be theirs again,
And I, whom you followed, will cherish
The men who shall breathe your name.
Farewell, as I leave you in sorrow,
Yet joy, for your stent is done;
Farewell, till I greet you through others
Who further your toil begun.
O'er trails where we wrought together
No more shall your footsteps wend,
But I in the silence shall wait you,
Rewarding you at the end.
* * * * * * *
I saw the eye that was growing dim,
Re-kindle with golden fire,
As memories wakened of long ago—
The chords of the old desire;
I saw the figure, so bent and old,
That soon must forever fall,
Gaze wistfully thro' the vanished years,
Revering the mother call.
She warned the ones who should seek her coasts
Of perils and shadows drear,
Of the fears undreamed that o'ershadow
The way of the pioneer;
She promised naught, but whatever
Her children had sought before,
The hunger, silence, and p'raps the grave,
Her legacies evermore.
For the mother calls, and her sons obey,
Well knowing her love sincere,
That lures them on o'er the crag and fen,
Protecting them from the fear;
'Tis the men who know who are faithful,
When others have cursed her trails,
That her love is but for her children,
Her anger for he who quails.
'Tis the mother call that lures you on,
As wanderers still you roam,
The mother call to the pioneer,
Inanimate, sad, alone;
'Tis the mother call, and you follow
The men who have wrought and gone;
'Tis the mother lovingly calling
The soul of her youngest born.
THE RODMAN'S DREAM
I dreamed that the trumpet had sounded,
The Judgment we went to on high,
By bands of the angels surrounded,
We hurried away to the sky;
Some fellows wore scared-looking faces,
And some had a wondering look,
But stood all arranged in our places,
And watched as they opened the book.
We never had read much about it,
And seldom attended the kirk,
The judgment we heard, never doubt it,
Was, "Man should be judged by his work";
We hadn't done much we were proud of,
Except for the road or the mine,
But Mac said, if it was allowed of,
We'd build them a heavenly line.