The last thread is used to-day,
And I need not join it on.
Though the clock stands at the noon,
I am weary! I have sewn
Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.
" Sister, help me to the bed,
And stand near me, dearest-sweet,
Do not shrink nor be afraid,
Blushing with a sudden heat!
No ont standeth in the street?—
By God's love I go to meet,
Love I thee with love complete.
" Lean thy face down! drop it in
These two hands, that I may hold
'Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin,
Stroking back the curls of gold.
'Tis a fair, fair face, in sooth—
Larger eyes and redder mouth
Than mine were in my first youth!
" Thou art younger by seven years—
Ah!—so bashful at my gaze,
That the lashes, hung with tears,
Grow too heavy to upraise?
I would wound thee by no touch
Which thy shyness feels as such—
Dost thou mind me, dear, so much?
" Have I not been nigh a mother
To thy sweetness—tell me, dear?
Have we not loved one another
Tenderly, from year to year;
Since our dying mother mild
Said with accents undefiled, [1]
'Child, be mother to this child!'
" Mother, mother, up in heaven,
Stand up on the jasper sea,
And be witness I have given
All the gifts required of me;—
Hope that bless'd me, bliss that crown'd,
Love, that left me with a wound,
Life itself, that turneth round!
" Mother, mother, thou art kind,
Thou art standing in the room,—
In a molten glory shrined,
That rays off into the gloom!
But thy smile is bright and bleak
Like cold waves—I cannot speak;
I sob in it, and grow weak.
" Ghostly mother, keep aloof
One hour longer from my soul—
For I still am thinking of
Earth's warm-beating joy and dole!
On my finger is a ring
Which I still see glittering,
When the night hides every thing.
" Little sister, thou art pale!
Ah! I have a wandering brain—
But I lose that fever-bale,
And my thoughts grow calm again.
Lean down closer—closer still!
I have words thine ear to fill,—
And would kiss thee at my will.
" Dear, I heard thee in the spring,
Thee and Robert—through the trees,
When we all went gathering
Boughs of May-bloom for the bees.
Do not start so! think instead
How the sunshine overhead
Seem'd to trickle through the shade.
" What a day it was, that day!
Hills and vales did openly
Seem to heave and throb away,
At the sight of the great sky:
And the silence, as it stood
In the glory's golden flood,
Audibly did bud—and bud!
" Through the winding hedgerows green,
How we wander'd, I and you,—
With the bowery tops shut in,
And the gates that show'd the view—
How we talk'd there! thrushes soft
Sang our pauses out,—or oft
Bleatings took them, from the croft.
" Till the pleasure, grown too strong,
Left me muter evermore;
And, the winding road being long,
I walked out of sight, before;
And so, wrapt in musings fond,
Issued (past the wayside pond)
On the meadow-lands beyond.
" I sate down beneath the beech
Which leans over to the lane,
And the far sound of your speech
Did not promise any pain:
And I bless'd you full and free,
With a smile stoop'd tenderly
O'er the May-flowers on my knee.
" But the sound grew into word
As the speakers drew more near—
Sweet, forgive me that I heard
What you wish'd me not to hear.
Do not weep so—do not shake—
Oh,—I heard thee, Bertha, make
Good true answers for my sake.
- ↑ "With accents undefiled;" this is surely a very strange and unaccountable interpolation. How was it possible, or conceivable, that any accents could be defiled, which conveyed the holiest and most pathetic injunction that ever came from the lips of a dying mother?
