Classic Poem

But the shadow of that palace fell athwart a lowly dwelling;
The red shimmer from its windows nearly kissed a cold hearthstone,
And the voices of its revelry, voluptuously swelling,
Went out amidst the darkness, blended with a sad heart's moan.

In that lonely, dreary attic, where a feeble light was burning,
And the wintry wind went in and out with sobbing wierd and wild,
Sat a pale, despairing woman, with a mother's fond heart yearning,
Softly singing a low lullaby to soothe her dying child.

As the failing embers faded, and the lonely room grew drearer,
She arranged the tattered mantle closer round the little form,
And wailed so low and piteous! There was none but God to hear her—
And her wail was only answered by the wailing of the storm.

Then she closed her wild eyes meekly, and her lips moved as in praying;
She, perchance, besought Our Father to withhold his chastening rod;
But the chill air caught no whisper as the low words she was saying
Went winging from her pallid lips to the white throne of God.

Then she kissed that baby brow again, and parted, with cold fingers,
The entangled, death-damp tresses of its silken, golden hair;
And gazed in its sweet, shadowy eyes with all the love that lingers,
Lives and suffers in a mother's heart when hope has perished there.

Still the dying embers faded, still the winds without kept wailing,
And the weary human heart within throbbed wildly as before;
And the red light from the palace, where the revel was, kept trailing,
Like the bright wing of an angel, on the carpetless tile floor.

And she still sung that low lullaby, love's holiest words repeating,
Even when the lingering rose-tint from its baby lip had flown;
And she never ceased her singing when the little heart stopped beating,
Only kissed the icy forehead and kept singing on alone.

But the murmurous sound of revel died away before the morning;
And the shimmer from the windows faded when the sky grew red;
But alone, in that drear attic, by the night-lamp dimly burning,
That desolate-hearted mother still sat singing by her dead.

Who was she—that friendless woman, in the wintry dawning weeping?
In the shadow of a palace, perishing of want and cold;
In the great heart of a city, all alone love's vigil keeping,
With the dead child on her bosom? Was her story ever told?