My Mother by William Bell Scott. Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. 1895. A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

My Mother

William Bell Scott (1811–90)


THERE was a gather’d stillness in the room:
Only the breathing of the great sea rose
From far off, aiding that profound repose,
With regular pulse and pause within the gloom
Of twilight, as if some impending doom	5
Was now approaching;—I sat moveless there,
Watching with tears and thoughts that were like prayer,
Till the hour struck,—the thread dropp’d from the loom;
And the Bark pass’d in which freed souls are borne.
The dear still’d face lay there; that sound forlorn	10
Continued; I rose not, but long sat by:
And now my heart oft hears that sad seashore,
When she is in the far-off land, and I
Wait the dark sail returning yet once more.