Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/Two Voices

by Sarah Piatt

TWO VOICES. [EAGER CHILD AND TOO BUSY MOTHER.]

"One bird is come. It's blue. But there is not any other
 In this whole world anywhere, and it will soon be gone.
Will you listen?" "I must hush your pretty, crying brother.
 Tell it—to sing on."

"Here's one rose, the first of all. But the wind may blow and take it,
 Or the frost may come again as cold as frost can be,
Or a bee that hunts for honey may light on the leaves, and break it.—
 Will you come and see?"

"Look on the floor, my boy, and think of my distresses:
 Aladdin's Lamp (upset) and Blue Beard's dreadful key,
The Sleeping Beauty's coverlet and Cinderella's dresses,
 Full of dust—ah, me!"

"Now a star is out. It's gold. But I tell you it will never
 Look so shining any more where the water is so deep."
"Oh, the star will stay, I fancy, somewhere in the sky forever;
 I—must go to sleep.

. . . "It will stay. But I shall stay not. Why was I sent hither,
 Fair brief world, if I must leave you, having seen nor heard
(Resting in your grass an instant on my secret mission—whither?)
 Star, nor bloom, nor bird?

"I would help you find the fairies (for the moon can shine on pleasure),
 I would hear the bird a-singing, I would see the rose was red,
If I only had a little of the long, long leisure
 I shall have—when dead."