SEVEN TIMES FOUR.  MATERNITY.

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
  Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall! 
When the wind wakes how they rock in the grasses,
  And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender and small! 
Here’s two bonny boys, and here’s mother’s own lasses,
    Eager to gather them all.

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups! 
  Mother shall thread them a daisy chain;
Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow,
  That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain;
Sing, “Heart, thou art wide though the house be but narrow”—­
    Sing once, and sing it again.

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
  Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow;
A ship sails afar over warm ocean waters,
  And haply one musing doth stand at her prow. 
O bonny brown sons, and O sweet little daughters,
    Maybe he thinks on you now!

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
  Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall—­
A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure,
  And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall! 
Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure,
    God that is over us all!

SEVEN TIMES FIVE.  WIDOWHOOD.

I sleep and rest, my heart makes moan
  Before I am well awake;
“Let me bleed!  O let me alone,
  Since I must not break!”

For children wake, though fathers sleep
  With a stone at foot and at head: 
O sleepless God, forever keep,
  Keep both living and dead!

I lift mine eyes, and what to see
  But a world happy and fair! 
I have not wished it to mourn with me—­
  Comfort is not there.

O what anear but golden brooms,
  And a waste of reedy rills! 
O what afar but the fine glooms
  On the rare blue hills!

I shall not die, but live forlore—­
  How bitter it is to part! 
O to meet thee, my love, once more! 
  O my heart, my heart!

No more to hear, no more to see! 
  O that an echo might wake
And waft one note of thy psalm to me
  Ere my heart-strings break!

I should know it how faint soe’er,
  And with angel voices blent;
O once to feel thy spirit anear,
  I could be content!

Or once between the gates of gold,
  While an angel entering trod,
But once—­thee sitting to behold
  On the hills of God!

SEVEN TIMES SIX.  GIVING IN MARRIAGE.

To bear, to nurse, to rear,
  To watch, and then to lose: 
To see my bright ones disappear,
  Drawn up like morning dews—­
To bear, to nurse, to rear,
  To watch, and then to lose: 
This have I done when God drew near
  Among his own to choose.

To hear, to heed, to wed,
  And with thy lord depart
In tears that he, as soon as shed,
  Will let no longer smart.—­
To hear, to heed, to wed,
  This while thou didst I smiled,
For now it was not God who said,
“Mother, give ME thy child.”