Poems (Spofford)/Mother Mine
MOTHER MINE.
When by the ruddy fire I spelled, In one old volume and another,Those ballads haunted by fair women, One of them always seemed my mother.
In storied song she dwelt, where dwell Strange things and sweet of eld and eerie,The foam of Binnorie's bonny mill-dams, The bowing birks, the wells o' Wearie.
All the Queen's Maries did she know, The eldritch knight, the sisters seven,The lad that lay upon the Lomonds And saw the perch play in Lochleven.
Burd Helen had those great gray eyes Their rays from shadowy lashes flinging;That smile the winsome bride of Yarrow Before her tears were set to singing.
That mouth was just the mouth that kissed Sir Cradocke under the green wildwood;Fair Rosamond was tall as she was, In those fixed fancies of my childhood.
And when she sang—ah, when she sang! Birds are less sweet, and flutes not clearer—In ancient halls I saw the minstrel, And shapes long dead arose to hear her!
Darlings of song I've heard since then, But no such voice as hers was, swellingLike bell-notes on the winds of morning, All angelhood about it dwelling.
No more within those regions dim Of rich romance my thoughts would place her,Her life itself is such a poem She does not need old names to grace her.
Long years have fled, but left her charm Smiling to see that years are fleeter,Those ballads are as sweet as ever, But she is infinitely sweeter.
For love, that shines through all her ways, Hinders the stealthy hours from duty,A soul divinely self-forgetful Has come to blossom in her beauty.
While the low brow, the silver curl, The twilight glance, the perfect features,The rose upon a creamy pallor, Make her the loveliest of creatures.
Now with the glow that, on the face Like moonlight on a flower, has found her,With the tone's thrill, a faint remoteness, Half like a halo hangs around her.
Half like a halo? Nay, indeed, I never saw a picture painted—Such holy work the years have rendered— So like a woman that is sainted!