“There was a seal-skin
In the kitchen—
A little crumpled thing;
I can’t think how it came there;
But this morning
Mammy found it on a chair,
And when she began
To feel it, she dropped
It on the floor—
But snatch’d it up again and ran
Straight out at the door,
And never stopped
Till she-reach’d the shore.
“Then we three, Daddy,
Ran after, crying, ‘Take us to the sea!
Wait for us, Mammy, we are coming too!
Here’s Alice, Willie can’t keep up with you!
Mammy, stop—just for a minute or two!’
But Alice said, ‘Maybe
She’s making us a boat
Out of the seal-skin cleverly,
And by-and-by she’ll float
It on the water from the sands
For us.’ Then Willie clapt his hands
And shouted, ‘Run on, Mammy, to the sea,
And we are coming, Willie understands.’
“At last we came to where the hill
Slopes straight down to the beach,
And there we stood all breathless, still,
Fast clinging each to each.
We saw her sitting upon a stone,
Putting the little seal-skin on.
Oh! Mammy! Mammy!
She never said good-bye, Daddy,
She didn’t kiss us three;
She just put the little seal-skin on,
And slipped into the sea!
Oh! Mammy’s gone, Daddy; Mammy’s gone!
She slipp’d into the sea!”
A SURPRISE.
“She is dead!” they said to him. “Come away;
Kiss her! and leave her!—thy love is clay!”
They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair;
On her forehead of stone they laid it fair:
Over her eyes, which gazed too much,
They drew the lids with a gentle touch;
With a tender touch they closed up well
The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell;
About her brows, and her dear, pale face
They tied her veil and her marriage-lace;
And drew on her white feet her white silk shoes;—
Which were the whiter no eye could choose!