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| MY mother died when I was young, | |
| Yet not too young to know | |
| What terror round the dark halls clung | |
| That aching day of snow. | |
| |
| I knew she could not comfort me. | 5 |
| I sat there all alone. | |
| Cold sorrow held me quietly | |
| Dumb as a snow-hid stone. | |
| |
| And yet I seemed to watch it all | |
| As in a picture-book: | 10 |
| The silent people in the hall, | |
| My father’s frozen look, | |
| |
| The heaped white roses, and my dress | |
| So very black and new. | |
| I watched it without weariness— | 15 |
| Ah, how the snow-blast blew! . . . . . . . . . | |
| Tonight you say you love me—me | |
| Who leap to love you. Lo, | |
| I am all yours so utterly | |
| You need not speak, nor show | 20 |
| |
| One sign, but I shall understand | |
| Out to our life’s last rim; | |
| Out into death’s uncertain land, | |
| Gracious be it or grim. | |
| |
| I am all yours. And yet tonight | 25 |
| The old trick haunts me. Look! | |
| I see your face, O new delight, | |
| As in a picture-book. | |
| |
| Your face, your shape, the fire-lit room, | |
| The red rose on the shelf; | 30 |
| And, leaning to its passionate bloom, | |
| Troubled with love, myself. | |
| |
| Oh, hold your hand across my eyes— | |
| They have no right to see! | |
| But now, as then, they are too wise: | 35 |
| They stare—they frighten me! | |
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