of the waters. "There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land." From a good home, thankfully and reverently used, flows the stream of a good, a pure, and a profitable life.
* By permission of Grant Richards Company, Ltd.
As if he were a vision that would fade, Rizpah gazed on him. Never, to her eye, Grew his bright form familiar; but, like stars, That seem'd each night new lit in a new heaven, He was each morn's sweet gift to her. She loved Her first-born, as a mother loves her child, Tenderly, fondly. But for him the last
What had she done for heaven to be his mother!
Her heart rose in her throat to hear his voice;
She look'd on him forever through her tears;
Her utterance, when she spoke to him, sank down,
As if the lightest thought of him had lain
In an unfathom'd cavern of her soul.
The morning light was part of him, to her-
What broke the day for, but to show his beauty?
The hours but measured time till he should come;
Too tardy sang the bird when he was gone;
She would have shut the flowers and call'd the star
Back to the mountain-top- and bade the sun
Pause at eve's golden door-to wait for him!
Was this a heart gone wild?.
Of mothers like a madness? Such as this
Is many a poor one in her humble home,
Who silently and sweetly sits alone,
Pouring her life all out upon her child.
What cares she that he does not feel how close
Her heart beats after his that all unseen
Are the fond thoughts that follow him by day,
And watch his sleep like angels? And, when moved
By some sore needed Providence, he stops
In his wild path and lifts a thought to heaven,
What cares the mother that he does not see
The link between the blessing and her prayer!
THE MOURNING MOTHER
(OF THE DEAD BLIND)
BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Dost thou weep, mourning mother,
For thy blind boy in the grave?
That no more with each other,
Sweet counsel ye can have?
That he, left dark by nature,
Can never more be led
By thee, maternal creature,
Along smooth paths instead?
That thou canst no more show him
The sunshine, by the heat:
The river's silver flowing,
By murmurs at his feet?
The foliage by its coolness;
The roses, by their smell;
And all creation's fulness,
By Love's invisible?
Weepest thou to behold not
His meek blind eyes again,-
Closed doorways which were folded,
And prayed against in vain -
And under which, sate smiling
The child-mouth evermore,
As one who watcheth, wiling
The time by, at the door?
And weepest thou to feel not
His clinging hand in thine-
Which now, at dream-time, will not
Its cold touch disentwine? And weepest thou still ofter,
Oh, never more to mark
His low soft words, made softer
By speaking in the dark?
Weep on, thou mourning mother!
But since to him when living
Thou wast both sun and moon,
Look o'er his grave, surviving
From a high sphere alone.
Sustain that exaltation,
Expand that tender light,
And hold in mother-passion
Thy Blessed in thy sight.
See how he went out straightway
From the dark world he knew,No twilight in the gateway
To mediate 'twixt two,Into the sudden glory,
Out of the dark he trod,
Departing from before thee
At once to light and God!-
For the first face, beholding
The Christ's in its divine,
For the first place, the golden
And tideless hyaline;
With trees, as lasting summer,
That rock to songful sound,
While angels, the new-comer,
Wrap a still smile around.
Oh, in the blessed psalm now,
His happy voice he tries,
Spreading a thicker palm-bough,
Than others o'er his eyes!
Yet still, in all the singing,
Thinks haply of thy song
Which, in his life's first springing,
Sang to him all night long;
And wishes it beside him,
With kissing lips that cool
And soft did overglide him,
To make the sweetness full.
Look up, O mourning mother,
Thy blind boy walks in light!
Ye wait for one another,
Before God's infinite.
But thou art now the darkest,
Thou mother left below -
Thou, the sole blind,- thou markest,
Content that it be so,-
Until ye two have meeting
Where Heaven's pearl gate is,
And he shall lead thy feet in,
As once thou leddest his.
Wait on, thou mourning mother.
How like the sky she bends above her child,
One with the great horizon of her pain!
No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild,
No weeping cloud, no momentary rain,
Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief,
That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb.
She stoops in pity above the laboring earth,
Knowing how fond, how brief
Is all its hope, past, present, and to come,
She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its
dearth.
Through that fair face the whole dark universe Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro' one white flower;
And all those wrenched Promethean souls that curse The gods, but cannot die before their hour,
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