Each was as fair as the other,
And both as my life were dear;
And the voices that lisped me mother,
Heaven's music in my ear.
One faded from life--and mother,
And died in the summer dawn;
And I turned away from the other
And wept for the child that was gone.
Then I lay in a weird sleep-vision,
Before me an earth dark scene,
And the land of the sweet Elysian,
And only a grave between.
One child soft called me mother
Out from the shining door,
And smile and beckoned; the other
Unconsciously played on the floor.
One's path, to my inward seeing,
Was light with a wondrous day,
And led to the heights of being,
And an angel showed the way.
The other lay where Marah's
Hot sands with snares are strewn--
Through many a darksome forest,
And the way was roughly hewn.
A faith to my soul was given--
The weird sleep-vision o'er--
And I turned from the child in heaven
To the child that played on the floor.
* * * * *