"Her lot is on you"—woman's lot she meant,
⁠The singer who sang sweetly long ago;
And rose and yew and tender myrtle blent,
⁠To crown the harp that rang to love and woe.
Awake, O poetess, and vow one strain
To sing of motherhood, its joy, its pain.

What does it give to us, this mother love—
⁠In verse and tale and legend glorified,
Chosen by lips divine as type above
⁠All other passions? Men have lived and died
For sisters, maiden queens, and cherished wives,
Yet, sealed by God, the one chief love survives.

Yet what is it it gives us? Shrinking dread,
⁠Peril, and pain, and agony forgot,
Because we hold the ray of gladness shed,
⁠By the first cry from lips that know us not,
Worth all that has been paid, is yet to pay,
For the new worship, born and crowned that day.

Then nursing, teaching, training, self-denial,
⁠That never knows itself, so deep it lies,
The eager taking up of every trial,
⁠To smooth Spring's pathway, light her April skies;
Watching and guiding, loving, longing, praying,
No coldness daunting, and no wrong dismaying.

And when the lovely bud to blossom wakes,
⁠And when the soft shy dawn-star flashes bright,
Another hand the perfect flower takes,
⁠Another wins the gladness of the light;
A sweet, soft, clinging, fond farewell is given;
Still a farewell, and then alone with Heaven.

With Heaven! Will he take the tired heart,
⁠The God who gave the child and formed the mother,
Who sees her strive to play her destined part,
⁠And, smiling, yield her darling to another?
Ay, on his cross he thought of Mary's woe;
He pities still the mothers left below.

Yes, 'tis autumn, dearest, see
⁠Cold, rough signs on every side;
Listen to the fluttering leaf,
⁠Borne before the tempest tide.
Listen to the mournful song,
⁠Wafted from the pine-trees tall;
Listen to the torrent's voice,
⁠Loud resounding over all.

It was in the gladsome spring,
⁠When we met and told our love;
Nature sang in ecstasy,
⁠The skies were bright and blue above.
Then we hoped, and had no thought
⁠That darksome days could ever be;
The golden hours flitted by
⁠In mirth and loving revelry.

Then summer came — we lovers still
⁠Trifled the long sweet hours away;
In scented woods, and deep, dark shades,
⁠With jest and smile, and old-world lay.
Or, on the cool, broad river's wave,
⁠Floating along, we wove our dream,
Nor thought of those who toiled for gain
⁠In the great city's busy stream.

'Tis autumn now, and winter soon
⁠Will change the fair world's smiling face;
A year, alas! will then have flown,
⁠To us a fleeting moment's space.
Oh, ere the spring come back again,
⁠In all her radiancy divine,
May fortune smile.upon our love,
⁠And let me call thee, dearest, mine!

Under the blue of the mid-May sky,
⁠Under the shadow of beech and lime,
Watching cloud-shallops drift idly by,
⁠Free from the thraldom of fate and time;
Lulled by the murmur of breeze and stream,
⁠Twitter of songster, flutter of spray,
That sweetly blend with the waking dream,
⁠And whisper one magical word alway;
Held by the spell of an exquisite face,
⁠A voice that is dearer than all things dear,
Ah, but the world is a fairy place
⁠In the bloom of the heart, the May of the year!

Sitting alone in the waning light,
⁠In the dead November's leaden dearth,
Watching the mists rise ghostly white,
⁠And blend in the shadows, and quench the earth;
Musing for aye on the might-have-been —
⁠Sweet might-have-been that may not be! —
The tender hopes and the fancies green
⁠That faded and fluttered from life's fair tree;
Haunted alway by a vanished face,
⁠A voice that is hushed in the midnight drear,
Ah, but the world is a weary place
⁠In the gloom of the heart, the gray of the year!