Page:The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter.djvu/69

Now they lay all so cold and they lay all so still
Till the night of the third long day;
Then they rose in their grave-clothes, all stiff and all chill,
And back to her door made their way.

“Jeanne Bras! Jeanne Bras! arise and let us through;
Jeanne Bras! Jeanne Bras! will you awake?”
“Oh glad, sweet ghost, will I free my door to you,
And pray your forgiveness to take!”

Jeanne Bras arose, and she lit her taper bright,
And her door she did set open wide:
She heard a young child go crying in the night,
But never a one was outside.

She prayed till dawn, and wept the lone, long day,
Weary she laid her down to rest;
There came to her door a ghost all pale and grey,
A babe lying cold on her breast.

“Jeanne Bras! Jeanne Bras! give shelter! Oh, awake!
Chill we are, and bitter is our woe.”
“O child, dear child, your mother's heart doth breaks
While cold and unsheltered you go!”

She rose up straight, and bright her taper shone
As she opened the door so wide;
But alas I to her grief, the woful ghost had gone,
And never a one was outside.

Jeanne Bras, so pale, she mounted up her stair.
And no tear did she now let fall;
But she laid her down on her pallet hard and bare,
And her white face she turned to the wall.

She lay there all night, she lay the day through,
And never a word spoke she,
Till there came with the dark a sad weeping she knew
The cry of her daughter to be.