THE GRANDSIRE

I loved him so; his voice had grown
Into my heart, and now to hear
The pretty song he had sung so long
Die on the lips to me so dear!
_He_ a child with golden curls,
And I with head as white as snow--
I knelt down there and made this pray’r:
“God, let me be the first to go!”

How often I recall it now:
My darling tossing on his bed,
I sitting there in mute despair,
Smoothing the curls that crowned his head.
They did not speak to me of death--
A feeling _here_ had told me so;
What could I say or do but pray
That I might be the first to go?

Yet, thinking of him standing there
Out yonder as the years go by,
Waiting for me to come, I see
’Twas better he should wait, not I.
For when I walk the vale of death,
Above the wail of Jordan’s flow
Shall rise a song that shall make me strong--
The call of the child that was first to go.

HUSHABY, SWEET MY OWN

Fair is the castle up on the hill--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
The night is fair, and the waves are still,
And the wind is singing to you and to me
In this lowly home beside the sea--
Hushaby, sweet my own!

On yonder hill is store of wealth--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
And revellers drink to a little one’s health;
But you and I bide night and day
For the other love that has sailed away--
Hushaby, sweet my own!

See not, dear eyes, the forms that creep
Ghostlike, O my own!
Out of the mists of the murmuring deep;
Oh, see them not and make no cry
Till the angels of death have passed us by--
Hushaby, sweet my own!

Ah, little they reck of you and me--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
In our lonely home beside the sea;
They seek the castle up on the hill,
And there they will do their ghostly will--
Hushaby, O my own!

Here by the sea a mother croons
“Hushaby, sweet my own!”
In yonder castle a mother swoons
While the angels go down to the misty deep
Bearing a little one fast asleep--
Hushaby, sweet my own!

CHILD AND MOTHER

O Mother-My-Love, if you’ll give me your hand,
And go where I ask you to wander,
I will lead you away to a beautiful land--
The Dreamland that’s waiting out yonder.
We’ll walk in a sweet-posie garden out there
Where moonlight and starlight are streaming
And the flowers and the birds are filling the air
With the fragrance and music of dreaming.

There’ll be no little tired-out boy to undress,
No questions or cares to perplex you;
There’ll be no little bruises or bumps to caress,
Nor patching of stockings to vex you.
For I’ll rock you away on a silver-dew stream,
And sing you asleep when you’re weary,
And no one shall know of our beautiful dream
But you and your own little dearie.

And when I am tired I’ll nestle my head
In the bosom that’s soothed me so often,
And the wide-awake stars shall sing in my stead
A song which our dreaming shall soften.
So, Mother-My-Love, let me take your dear hand,
And away through the starlight we’ll wander--
Away through the mist to the beautiful land--
The Dreamland that’s waiting out yonder!