Classic Poem

“Come, sing for us, dear Mother,
A song of the olden times;
Of the merry Christmas carol,
Of the happy New Year chimes;
Nor sit here, idle-handed,
To hang your head and grieve,
Beside the blazing hearthstone
This pleasant Winter's eve.”

Then she sang, to please the children,
With half-forgetful tongue,
Some merry-measured roundel
Of the happy days and young;
But, pierced with sudden sorrow,
The words came faint and slow,
Till one, in childish panic,
Cried: “Mother, sing not so!”

Then all the little creatures
Looked wondering in her eyes;
And the Baby nestled nearer,
Startled at their surprise;
The voice grew thin and quavered,
Low drooped the weary head,
Till the breath of song was stifled,
And tears burst forth instead.

For misty memories covered
The children from her ken,
And down the bitter river
She dropped—no mother then;
No sister, helpmeet, daughter,
Linked to historic years;
An agonizing creature
That looked to God in tears.

But when some sudden turning
Had checked her hopeless way,
She saw the little faces
No longer glad or gay;
And as they gazed, bewildered
By grief they could not guess,
Their sympathetic silence
Was worse than her distress.

Then she tore the fatal vesture
Of agony aside;
And showed, with mimic gesture,

How naughty children cried.—
And told of hoary castles
By giant warders kept,
Of deep and breathless forests
Where trancéd beauties slept;
Weaving in rainbow madness
The cloud upon her brain,
Till they forgot her weeping,
And she forgot her pain.

'Twere well to pour the soul out
In one convulsive fit,
And rend the heart with weeping,
If Love were loosed from it.
But all the secret sorrow
That underlies our lives,
Must wait the true solution
The great progression gives.

Those griefs so widely gathered,
Those deep, abyssmal chords,
Broken by wailing music
Too passionate for words,
Find gentle reconcilement
In some serener breast.
And touch with deeper pathos
Its symphonies of rest.