Page:Maurine and Other Poems (1910).pdf/61

 And for a moment bring the old-time smart.

Congratulations, kisses, tears and smiles, Good-byes and farewells given; then across The snowy waste of weary wintry miles, Back to my girlhoods’ home, where, through each room, For evermore pale phantoms of delight Should aimless wander, always in my sight, Pointing, with ghostly fingers, to the tomb Wet with the tears of living pain and loss.

The sleepless nights of watching and of care, Followed by that one week of keenest pain, Taxing my weakened system, and my brain, Brought on a ling’ring illness.

Day by day, In that strange, apathetic state I lay, Of mental and of physical despair. I had no pain, no fever, and no chill, But lay without ambition, strength, or will. Knowing no wish for anything but rest, Which seemed, of all God’s store of gifts, the best.

Physicians came and shook their heads and sighed; And to their score of questions I replied, With but one languid answer, o’er and o’er, “I am so weary—weary—nothing more.”

I slept, and dreamed I was some feathered thing, Flying through space with ever-aching wing, Seeking a ship called Rest all snowy white, That sailed and sailed before me, just in sight, But always one unchanging distance kept, And woke more weary than before I slept.

I slept, and dreamed I ran to win a prize, A hand from heaven held down before my eyes. All eagerness I sought it—it was gone, But shone in all its beauty farther on. I ran, and ran, and ran, in eager quest Of that great prize, whereon was written “Rest,” Which ever just beyond my reach did gleam, And wakened doubly weary with my dream.

I dreamed I was a crystal drop of rain, That saw a snow-white lily on the plain,