THE MOURNER ANSWERED. Amid the twilight’s gathering gloom, She knelt beside her babe’s new tomb. “My child,” she sigh’d, “did heaven not know How deep and dread would be my woe? For this did nature give thee birth, For this,—to bury thee?—O God!” She groan’d, then started. Earth to earth, Her lips had kiss’d the common sod. “Amid life’s flowers that fade and fall, What need to pluck a bud so small? With ripen’d harvests full supplied, What need had heaven of thee?” she cried; Then mark’d the flowers that, while she stoop’d, E’en yet made sweet her last-brought wreath: Those full-blown all had dropt or droop’d; The buds alone bloom’d bright beneath. “Why leave, O God,” was then her moan, “My widow’d soul still more alone? Why wrest from life the last thing dear? What harm that love should linger here?” And lo, the neighboring spire above Rang forth its evening call to prayer; And music fill’d from lips of love The House of God whose door was there. THE VACANT ROOM. Ah, wraith-lit star, that shone afar, And lured my eager footsteps on! This door I pass, and find, alas, The friend for whom I long’d is gone. O think how drear mere sands appear To travellers worn who pray for springs. More drear this place without the face I sought to cheer my wanderings. Have diamonds rare no gleams to spare The light that their own light would shun? Do roses droop when many a group Of clouds crowd off the autumn sun? The gem and rose less dull repose When all are gone that caused their worth, Than lip and eye when none are nigh With smiles that break in bursts of mirth. Are lovers wild, when maidens mild Their wisest ways of wooing shun? Do mothers weep, when waked from sleep Whose dream restored a long-lost son? Ah, scarce the man’s or mother’s plans Appear so rudely overthrown, As his whose thought in vain here sought A word to echo back his own. But time speeds on, and duties wan, Like ghosts untombed, forbid my stay; But though I go, this note shall show The loss, my friend, you cause to-day. It craves a thought for him who sought A sight of eyes that light it now; For him who waits till kindlier fates His hopes a kindlier fate allow. THANKSGIVING DAY. I Sought the house Thanksgiving Day, And found its inmates all away, Save her who sat before the fire, And, by her side, her palsied sire. At play, betwixt her fingers white, A needle nimbly glanced the light; But oft her eyes it could not stay, To either side would glance away. And on her right hand, open spread, There lay the Book of God she read; And on her left I just could trace An infant namesake’s pictured face.