Fannie Stearns Davis

MY mother died when I was young,

Yet not too young to know

What terror round the dark halls clung

That aching day of snow.

I knew she could not comfort me.

I sat there all alone.

Cold sorrow held me quietly

Dumb as a snow-hid stone.

And yet I seemed to watch it all

As in a picture-book:

The silent people in the hall,

My father’s frozen look,

The heaped white roses, and my dress

So very black and new.

I watched it without weariness—

Ah, how the snow-blast blew!

………

Tonight you say you love me—me

Who leap to love you. Lo,

I am all yours so utterly

You need not speak, nor show

One sign, but I shall understand

Out to our life’s last rim;

Out into death’s uncertain land,

Gracious be it or grim.

I am all yours. And yet tonight

The old trick haunts me. Look!

I see your face, O new delight,

As in a picture-book.

Your face, your shape, the fire-lit room,

The red rose on the shelf;

And, leaning to its passionate bloom,

Troubled with love, myself.

Oh, hold your hand across my eyes—

They have no right to see!

But now, as then, they are too wise:

They stare—they frighten me!