O, silvery voices, sweet with life and youth
Brushing our grey lives with your rainbow wings—
Lives that were stern and bitter with old wrong,
And cleansing them with beauty and with truth;
Reviving memories of vanished springs—
Making us whole with miracles of song!
TO EDITH
Do you remember how we walked that night
In early spring?
And how we found a new and sweet delight
In everything?
Do you remember how the air was filled
With mist and moonlight—how our hearts were thrilled—
And seemed to sing?
What if these walls shut out the world for me
And heaven too,
There still lives fragrant in my memory
The thought of you.
And out there now with life's high dome above you
If you but knew how very much I love you—
If you but knew . . . .
SONG OF SEPARATION
Two that I love must live alone,
Far away.
All in the world I can call my own,
Only they.
Mother and boy in the rocking chair,
Thinking of one who cannot be there,
Breathing a hope that is half a prayer;
Night and day, night and day.
Here in my cell I must sit alone,
Clothed in grey.
Bars of iron and walls of stone
Bid me stay.
What of the world with its pomp and show?
Baubles of nothing! This I know:
Deep in my heart I miss them so
Night and day, night and day.
TO MY LITTLE SON
I cannot lose the thought of you
It haunts me like a little song,
It blends with all I see or do
Each day, the whole day long.
The train, the lights, the engine's throb,
And that one stinging memory:
Your brave smile broken with a sob,
Your face pressed close to me.