"There was a little woman, as I've heard tell,

She went to market her eggs for to sell:

She went to market all on a market day,

And she fell asleep on the king's highway.

"There came a little peddler, his name was Stout;

He cut off her petticoats round about:

He cut off her petticoats up to her knees,

And the poor little woman began for to freeze.

"She began to shiver, and she began to cry,

Lawk-a-mercy on me! sure it is n't I!

But if it be I, as I think it ought to be,

I 've got a little dog at home, and he knows me!"

I think of a poor, tired Soul,

That has trodden, up and down,

The tradeways of this busy life,

To and from its market town,

Till, traffic and toil all past,

At the silent close of the day,

She lies down, weary and worn, at last,

On the king's highway;—

The highway that brings all home,

Never a one left out;—

And in her sleep doth a Stranger come

Who cuts her garments about.

Cuts the life-tatters away,

All the old rags and the stain;

And leaves the Soul 'twixt her night and

day,

To waken again.

Slowly she wakens, and strange;

Strange and scared she doth seem;

Marvelling at the mystical change

Come over her in her dream.

"Where is my life?" she cries,

"That which I knew me by?

Something is here in an unknown guise:

Can it be I?

"I wonder if anything is:

Or if I am anything:

Did ever a Soul come bare as this

From its earthward marketing?

Let me think down into the past;

Bethink me hard in the cold;

Find me something to stand by fast;

Something to hold!"

She thinks away back to the morning,

To something she loved and knew;

And over her doubt comes dawning

Sense of the dear and true.

"I do n't know if it be I," she sighs;

"But if after all it be,

There 's a little heart at home in the skies,

And he 'll know me!"