THE GRANDMOTHER.
'Sleep'st thou? Awaken, mother of our mother!
We love thee—thee alone—we have no other!
In sleeping thy lips moved: we've seen this often,
For thy sleep was a prayer,—oh, relent and soften!
But this evening thou seemest the Madonna of stone,
And though thou art present, we feel all alone.
'Why bend'st thou thy forehead lower than ever?
What wrong have we done, that thou claspest us never?
See! the lamp flickers, the hearth sparkles as dying,
If thou speakest no more, and art deaf to our crying—
The fire that we feed now, and the lamp that we cherish,
And we two thy loved ones—all, all shall perish.
'Thou shalt find us both dead, by the lamp without light,
And what wilt thou do when thou meetest that sight?
Thy children in turn shall be deaf to thy calling,
To bring us to life, thou then shalt be falling
On thy knees to thy Saints,—but long will it be,
Yea, long must thou clasp us, ere they give us to thee.
'Oh, show us thy Bible, and the pictures we love,
The Saints on their knees, the skies fretted above
The child Jesus, the manger, the oxen, the kings
With their gold, and their spices, and their rich offerings,
And make us read, as we can, in this Latin so odd,
Which we like (though 'tis hard), for it tells us of God.
