| |
| “SHE has gone to be with the angels;” | |
| So they had always said | |
| To the little questioner asking | |
| Of his fair, young mother, dead. | |
| |
| They had never told of the darkness | 5 |
| Of the sorrowful, silent tomb, | |
| Nor scared the sensitive spirit | |
| By linking a thought of gloom | |
| |
| With the girl-like, beautiful being, | |
| Who patiently from her breast, | 10 |
| Had laid him in baby-sweetness, | |
| To pass to her early rest. | |
| |
| And when he would lisp—“Where is she?” | |
| Missing the mother-kiss, | |
| They answered—“A way in a country | 15 |
| That is lovelier far than this:— | |
| |
| “A land all a-shine with beauty | |
| Too pure for our mortal sight, | |
| Where the darling ones who have left us | |
| Are walking in robes of white.” | 20 |
| |
| And with eagerest face he would listen, | |
| His tremulous lips apart, | |
| Till the thought of the Beautiful Country | |
| Haunted his yearning heart. | |
| |
| One morn, as he gazed from the window, | 25 |
| A miracle of surprise, | |
| A marvellous, mystic vision | |
| Dazzled his wondering eyes. | |
| |
| Born where the winter’s harshness | |
| Is tempered with spring-tide glow, | 30 |
| The delicate Southern nursling | |
| Never had seen the snow. | |
| |
| And clasping his childish fingers, | |
| He turned with a flashing brow, | |
| And cried—“We have got to heaven— | 35 |
| Show me my mother now!” | |
| |
