It’s good to dream and turn, And turn and dream, or fall To comfort with my pack of bones, And know of nothing at all! Yes, never know at all! If prowlers mew or bark, Nor wonder if it’s three o’clock Or four o’clock of the dark. When the longer shades have fallen And the last weariness Has brought the sweetest gift of life, The last forgetfulness. If a sound as of old leaves Stir the last bed I keep, Then say, my dears: “It’s old Lizette— She’s turning in her sleep!” AGNES LEE MOTHERHOOD Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently. Following the children joyously astir Under the cedrus and the olive tree, Pausing to let their laughter float to her. Each voice an echo of a voice more dear, She saw a little Christ in every face; When lo, another woman, gliding near, Yearned o’er the tender life that filled the place. And Mary sought the woman’s hand, and spoke: “I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost. “I, too, have rocked my little one, O, He was fair! Yea, fairer than the fairest sun, And like its rays through amber spun His sun-bright hair. Still I can see it shine and shine.” “Even so,” the woman said, “was mine.” “His ways were ever darling ways,”— And Mary smiled,— “So soft, so clinging! Glad relays Of love were all His precious days. My little child! My infinite star! My music fled!” “Even so was mine,” the woman said. Then whispered Mary: “Tell me, thou, Of thine.” And she: “O, mine was rosy as a boug Blooming with roses, sent, somehow, To bloom for me! His balmy fingers left a thrill Within my breast that warms me still.” Then gazed she down some wilder, darker hour, And said, when Mary questioned, knowing not, “Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?” “I am the mother of Iscariot.” AGNES LEE ESSEX I Thy hills are kneeling in the tardy spring, And wait, in supplication’s gentleness, The certain resurrection that shall bring A robe of verdure for their nakedness. Thy perfumed valleys where the twilights dwell, Thy fields within the sunlight’s living coil Now promise, while the veins of nature swell, Eternal recompense to human toil. And when the sunset’s final shades depart The aspiration to completed birth Is sweet and silent; as the soft tears start, We know how wanton and how little worth Are all the passions of our bleeding heart That vex the awful patience of the earth. II