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And all the flickering song and shade
Of water took my dreams.

Swift through her haunted fingers pass
Memories of garden things;-

I dipped my face in flowers and grass
And sounds of hidden wings.

One time she touched the cloud that kissed Brown pastures bleak and far; —

I leaned my cheek into a mist

And thought I was a star.

All this was very long ago

And I am grown; but yet

The hand that lured my slumber so
I never can forget.

For still when drowsiness comes on
It seems so soft and cool,
Shaped happily beneath my cheek,
Hollow and beautiful.

II

HER WORDS

My mother has the prettiest tricks
Of words and words and words.

Her talk comes out as smooth and sleek
As breasts of singing birds.

She shapes her speech all silver fine

Because she loves it so.

And her own eyes begin to shine
To hear her stories grow.

And if she goes to make a call

Or out to take a walk

We leave our work when she returns
And run to hear her talk.

We had not dreamed these things were so
Of sorrow and of mirth.

Her speech is as a thousand eyes
Through which we see the earth.

God wove a web of loveliness,

Of clouds and stars and birds,

But made not anything at all
So beautiful as words.

They shine around our simple earth

With golden shadowings,

And every common thing they touch

Is exquisite with wings.

There's nothing poor and nothing small
But is made fair with them.

They are the hands of living faith

That touch the garment's hem.

They are as fair as bloom or air,

They shine like any star,

And I am rich who learned from her

How beautiful they are.

*From "The Little Book of Modern Verse," by courtesy of the author.

MOTHER *

BY THERESA HELBURN

I have praised many loved ones in my song,
And yet I stand

Before her shrine, to whom all things belong,
With empty hand.

Perhaps the ripening future holds a time.
For things unsaid;

Not now; men do not celebrate in rhyme
Their daily bread.

* From "The Little Book of Modern Verse," by courtesy of the author.

IT IS NOT YOURS, O MOTHER, TO

COMPLAIN *

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

It is not yours, O mother, to complain,
Not, mother, yours to weep,
Though nevermore your son again

Shall to your bosom creep,

Though nevermore again you watch your baby sleep.

Though in the greener paths of earth,
Mother and child, no more

We wander; and no more the birth
Of me, whom once you bore,

Seems still the brave reward that once it

seemed of yore;

Though as all passes, day and night,

The seasons and the years,

From you, O mother, this delight,

This also disappears ·

Some profit yet survives of all your pangs

and tears.

The child, the seed, the grain of corn,

The acorn on the hill,

Each for some separate end is born

In season fit, and still

Each must in strength arise to work the almighty will.

So from the hearth the children flee,

By that almighty hand

Austerely led so one by sea

Goes forth, and one by land:

Nor aught of all man's sons escapes from that command.

So from the sally each obeys

The unseen almighty nod;

So till the ending all their ways

Blindfolded both have trod:

109

Nor knew their task at all, but were the tools of God.

And as the fervent smith of yore

Beat out the glowing blade,
Nor wielded in the front of war
The weapons that he made,

But in the tower at home still plied his ring-
ing trade;

So like a sword the son shall roam

On nobler missions sent;

And as the smith remained at home

In peaceful turret pent,

So sits the while at home the mother well

content.

* By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.

TO MY MOTHER

BY FELICIA HEMANS

If e'er for human bliss or woe
I feel the sympathetic glow;

If e'er my heart has learn'd to know
The gen'rous wish or prayer;
Who sow'd the germ with tender hand?
Who mark'd its infant leaves expand?

My mother's fostering care.

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