Poems (Curwen)/Two Letters

by Annie Isabel Curwen

Two Letters.

Two letters reached me on the self-same morn;
  One came to tell
That in one home a little babe was born,
  Child and mother well.

What joy there'll be within that home to-day,
  I, smiling, said;
Then turned to where the other letter lay,
  And, weeping, read,

That in another home the light had gone
  From mother's eyes:
Her pain-racked form at rest, her spirit flown
  To Paradise.

For one, the thrilling touch of wee warm hands
  And baby lips;
The other, parting, silence, and the unseen lands,
  The grave's eclipse.

Within one home, all joy, a mother sleeping,
  With babe at breast;
Within the other, sorrow, fond hearts weeping
  O'er one at rest.

'Tis ever thus, our joys are shadowed
  By sorrow's knell;
But with the living mother, and the dead,
  Thank God! 'tis well.