Twelve months agone
The beauteous face, all white with pity as
A wave with foam, sank in the dusk of death.
Four summers and the wafture of the fifth
Had poured their cataract of gold far down
The shining shoulders of the seraph boy,
While love, a father's and a mother's, hung
Above its laughter like a thing divine.

O golden head that drifted down to death!
Sweet eye and voice by silence swift devoured!
Dawn's kiss upon the forehead of the day!
The fresh-blown surge of grief was stilled,
And halcyon hope her azure wings outspread
As all the hollow sky on Easter morn
Was, like a lily, filled with golden light.
Swift through the hush of death the thrill of life
Touched the still chords of the fair mother's heart,
And woke unquenchable desire to lay
White lilies from the darksome mother-earth
Upon the tomb, where circled, like a dove,
Her wingËd hopes,—the tomb where long ago
White angels watched the birth of Life anew.

Beside the lilied mound she lingered long.
Her rising soul pushed at the gates of death,
Till, like a creek from which the moon has drunk
The tide, they yawned empty and bare of hope.
All spectral grew her heart with tearless grief
As some sweet plot of lichens reft of rain.
"There are no angels now," she said, "to roll
The stone away. O that He now were here
To raise my dead, if 'tis not all a myth!"
And as she spoke she lift a bitter face
Into the eyes of the bright Easter day.

Not far away she saw a little child
Of scarce five years, and drawing near she knew
Him one who never felt a mother's kiss,—
Now sitting at the grave where one long month
Had slept his father,—kith nor kin bequeathed
The boy in the wide circle of the earth.
She knew that, rose and rosebud on one stem,
Father and child had crimsoned life with love,
And that the wind of death had snatched
The rose and left the unsheltered bud alone;
Yet blinded by the night of her own grief
Scarce had she seen his golden day's eclipse.
Now swift she marked the tender mobile lips,
The spirit-light aglow in eye, on brow,
And the rare beauty of the noble face.

"Is your name Mary," fearlessly he asked,
"Who with the angels talked when the great stone
Was rolled away?—" "O no, dear child," she said,—
"Whom are you looking for?" With reverent mien,
Yet eager voice, "For Jesus," said the child.
"O Jesus is not here, my darling boy,
He's risen, you know." "Yes," said the wistful face,
"I've waited here all day for Him to come
And raise my father up. I thought perhaps
He sent you, 'tis so late, to bid me stay
A little—O 'tis never too late for
Jesus!" he said, and brushed away the tear;
"He's sure to come, for 'tis the Rising-Day."

The woman stoopt to kiss the wondrous boy,
And sat beside him there upon the grave,
And sobbed like organ swept by the master's hand.

"What makes you cry?—perhaps your father's here
To be raised up?" "No darling,—but my child."
He stroked the woman's hand: "Don't cry," he said,
"Jesus does not forget the Rising-Day,
He'll surely come and give to you your child
And me my father—He will come to-night.
I saw the two men who from Emmaus came,
Go by at early morn, and Jesus will
Meet them, and turn and this way come, as they
In wonder all about His dying talk,
And rising too. The men will know Him not,
But I shall, and will call to Him to stop
And raise my father up." "How shall you know
Him, my dear boy?" she asked. "O by His smile,
And by the picture father shewed me once,
But" (with his hand upon his heaving breast)
"I'll know Him best by the love I keep in here."
"Shall you?" she said, "and are you sure you'll know
Your father?" "My own father!" said the boy,
With wondering voice, "I'll know him by the love,
And so will you your child. They will not look
The same, for Jesus did not, but they knew
Him by His love." And finer grew the face
As the fond lingering voice, in love's own tones,
Repeated: "And we'll know them by the love."

Moveless a moment, as the tide at full,
Her heart hung in a balance, and as its
Tremulous deeps swayed to the signs of heaven,
Its wave broke o'er the banks of self to life.

"Philip," she cried, and clasped him in her arms,
"Jesus has gone to heaven, and I am sent
By Him to take you to your father now.
Come!" With faith strong as is the noonday sight,
Instant the child clasped home her trembling hand,
And passed without the gates, nor backward lookt.
Silent he went, for expectation held
Him fast, and a great light was on her face.

Entering her home, she bade that food be given
The famished boy; and when the maid brought milk,
Honey and bread with broilËd fish, he said,
With exultation: "Now I know this is
The house—it's all here just the same, and He'll
Be here to-night." With wingËd feet the wife
Sped up the stair to meet her husband's step,
And in a rapture told him all, and of
The wonder-heart below. "Heaven, a fair child,
An angel boy, has sent our stone to roll
Away! For us his vision is no less
Than for himself. O husband, this is life's
Supremest hour for us!—'I shall know him
By the love,' sweetly he says."—"It shall be
So indeed!" cried the father's yearning heart.

As she returned, the child most eager said,
In a sweet voice half-sob, but full of hope,
"O wash my face and comb my hair, before
I see my father—'tis not too late yet?"
The touch of the ineffable child-trust
Pierced deep her heart, yet with assuring tones
The words fell: "Philip, come, let us now go
To him."

The arras opened on a face
Noble and winsome sweet, though smiles were close
To tears. As azure bird on mountain stream
Halts a brief moment on some jutting crag,
Ere as a flash of streaming light it cleaves
The dewy darkness of the trickling dell;
So for a moment halted the sweet child,
Took one step forward, and then leapt into
The arms where death-shade once was deep as night,
But where commingling love now glads the gloom,
All lit by the sweet azure of the heart.
With head thrown back, and questioning eyes agaze:
"Father—you're—changed!" he said, "but by the love,
We know each other—by the love, the love!"
The father's heaving heart did echo sweet,
"The love, the love!"

And nestling down upon
The manly breast, the curly head, soft-stroked,
And soothed with all the lullabies of love,
Was rocked, like harbored sail, to rest of sleep,
Lapt in the love which fed his simple faith,
And poured a golden Easter in the heart
Of her who groped in darkness 'mong the tombs.