THE SAILOR'S MOTHER

“O whence do you come,

Figure in the night-fog that chills me numb?”

“I come to you across from my house up there,

And I do n't mind the brine-mist clinging to me

That blows from the quay,

For I heard him in my chamber, and thought you unaware.”

“But what did you hear,

That brought you blindly knocking in this middle-watch so drear?”

“My sailor son's voice as‘ twere calling at your door,

And I do n't mind my bare feet clammy on the stones,

And the blight to my bones,

For he only knows of THIS house I lived in before.”

“Nobody's nigh,

Woman like a skeleton, with socket-sunk eye.”

“Ah — nobody's nigh! And my life is drearisome,

And this is the old home we loved in many a day

Before he went away;

And the salt fog mops me. And nobody's come!”