The Keys of Morning

While at her bedroom window once,

Learning her task for school,

Little Louisa lonely sat

In the morning clear and cool,

She slanted her small bead-brown eyes

Across the empty street,

And saw Death softly watching her

In the sunshine pale and sweet.

His was a long lean sallow face;

He sat with half-shut eyes,

Like a old sailor in a ship

Becalmed 'neath tropic skies.

Beside him in the dust he had set

His staff and shady hat;

These, peeping small, Louisa saw

Quite clearly where she sat -

The thinness of his coal-black locks,

His hands so long and lean

They scarcely seemed to grasp at all

The keys that hung between:

Both were of gold, but one was small,

And with this last did he

Wag in the air, as if to say,

"Come hither, child, to me!"

Louisa laid her lesson book

On the cold window-sill;

And in the sleepy sunshine house

Went softly down, until

She stood in the half-opened door,

And peeped. But strange to say

Where Death just now had sunning sat

Only a shadow lay:

Just the tall chimney's round-topped cowl,

And the small sun behind,

Had with its shadow in the dust

Called sleepy Death to mind.

But most she thought how strange it was

Two keys that he should bear,

And that, when beckoning, he should wag

The littlest in the air.