All day the snow came silently to earth,
Until the path before the cottage door
Was even with the drift on either side.
No foot disturbed the mass of crystals white,
But when the wind began to roar and shriek,
And Night descended, with her sable wing
Darkening the scene around, a pallid face
Which had been pressed against the window pane
For half an hour, came forth into the gloom.
As looks the moon upon some stormy night
When every star is quenched, and she alone
Through rifted clouds peers forth and keeps her watch:
So looked that wife and mother as she stood
Upon the threshold gazing down the road
With chattering teeth, and limbs that quaked with cold,
Imagining she heard in every gust
The voice and footfall of the man she loved.
The hearth was piled with blazing logs that shed
A cheerful glow upon the cottage walls;
The table spread for three before it stood,
And yet the bread was all unbroken there,--
And from the cottage to the garden gate
A shivering form went flitting to and fro.
Despair was on her cheek--and in her eye
A mother's anguish: "But they might have seen
How fierce a storm was gathering--might have stayed."
And while the hope was fresh within her heart
She hurried in, but only to return
And take her station at the door again.
* * * * *
The moments slowly lengthened into hours,
The air grew chilly--for upon the hearth
A few decaying embers smoked alone;
And pale with midnight vigils and with grief
The watcher knelt to find relief in prayer.
Then hark! a sound--a footstep--and she starts!
Her heart leaps to her throat, and with a bound
She gains the cottage door--it opens wide.
A cry of joy is trembling on her lips,
For there the husband and the father stood.
She stretched her eager arms to take the boy,
But in the movement caught the father's eye
Where horror sat, and told the dreadful tale
He dared not trust his quivering lips to speak.
_"My boy is dead,"_ she cried; "my boy, my boy!"
And caught him wildly to her bursting heart.
Cold on her bosom fell the little head
Which had been pillowed there so oft in sleep,--
And as she raised the frosty lid which veiled
The violet eye beneath that lately laughed,
So deep a groan escaped her pallid lips
The guilty husband shuddered as he heard.
"Too late," he muttered in a husky tone,
And like an image of despair he stood,
Until she called him weeping to her side,
And murmured in a voice half choked with sobs:
"Nay, not too late, my husband, not too late:
God takes the child in mercy and in love,
To save the father. Shall it not be so?
Say by the love we bore this precious child,
Our own no longer--shall it not be so?"
The answer came, so low she scarcely heard,
But 'twas enough, and she looked up and smiled!