And while I stared away my childish wits Upon my mother’s picture, (ah, poor child!) My father, who through love had suddenly Thrown off the old conventions, broken loose From chin-bands of the soul, like Lazarus, Yet had no time to learn to talk and walk Or grow anew familiar with the sun,— Who had reached to freedom, not to action, lived, But lived as one entranced, with thoughts, not aims,— Whom love had unmade from a common man But not completed to an uncommon man,— My father taught me what he had learnt the best Before he died and left me,—grief and love. And, seeing we had books among the hills, Strong words of counselling souls, confederate With vocal pines and waters,—out of books He taught me all the ignorance of men, And how God laughs in heaven when any man Says ‘Here I’m learned; this, I understand; In that, I am never caught at fault or doubt.’ He sent the schools to school, demonstrating A fool will pass for such through one mistake, While a philosopher will pass for such, Through said mistakes being ventured in the gross And heaped up to a system. I am like, They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth Of delicate features,—paler, near as grave; But then my mother’s smile breaks up the whole, And makes it better sometimes than itself. So, nine full years, our days were hid with God Among his mountains. I was just thirteen, Still growing like the plants from unseen roots In tongue-tied Springs,—and suddenly awoke To full life and its needs and agonies, With an intense, strong, struggling heart beside A stone-dead father. Life, struck sharp on death, Makes awful lightning. His last word was, ‘Love—’ ‘Love, my child, love, love!’—(then he had done with grief) ‘Love, my child.’ Ere I answered he was gone, And none was left to love in all the world.