Gone

Mournfully, mournfully
    All around me are crying,
For my dark-eyed baby boy
    Is dying, dying

Tenderly, tenderly
    To him I am clinging,
But he slips from my fond arms,
    Death bells are ringing

Joyfully, joyfully
    Angels are receiving
My babe--by the empty cot
    I must sit grieving.

Nora Pembroke

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Nora Pembroke

To Annie On Her Birthday.

Nora Pembroke, Simple Poetry

Good-Bye.

Nora Pembroke, Simple Poetry

Retrospect

Nora Pembroke, Simple Poetry

We Lament Not For One But Many

Nora Pembroke, Simple Poetry

English

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Edgar

I have not wept for Edgar, as a mother
    Weeps for the tender lamb she lays to rest;
And yet it cannot be that any other
    Baby like him shall lie upon my breast;
For he was with us but a passing guest,
A birdling that belonged not to the nest.

Looking upon his large dark eyes so tender,
    Filled with the solemn light of Paradise,
I knew that word would soon come to surrender,
    My babe, not mine, but native to the skies;
As the sweet lark that ever upward flies,
He would be taken from my longing eyes.

For from the first he looked to be earth-weary,
    And clung to me with no desire to play;
He never laughed and crowed with spirit cheery
    Like my earth babies; but from day to day
Seemed ever yearning for the far-away,
And well I kn...

Nora Pembroke

Lamentation

(WALTER AND FREDDIE.)


From morn to eve, from evening unto morning,
    I mourn and cannot rest;
So mourns the mother bird when home returning
    She finds an empty nest.

I mourn the little children of my dwelling,
    That are forever gone,
Sorrows that mothers feel my heart is swelling,
    And so I make my moan.

One little blossom on my bosom faded,
    And passed from me away,
But near my door the drooping willows shaded
    My little boys at play

My boys that came with flying feet to meet me,
    And questions wondrous wise,
And bits of news which they had brought to greet me,
    And see my glad surprise

Bitter for sweet no human hand can alter
    Nor bid one sorrow pass,
With sudden stroke our darling ...

Nora Pembroke

In Memory Of John Leach Craig

In the midst of Life we are in Death.


What is it that has stilled the usual hurry,
    Checking the eager tread of rapid feet?
Why does the business face look sad and sorry
    Within the place where merchants choose to meet?
A something not unusual or strange,
One face is missing on the Corn Exchange.

Alas! they say he had uncommon merit,
    High the esteem and confidence he won;
He brought to business life a joyous spirit,
    And mixed commercial tact with boyish fun.
We miss his breezy laugh, his pleasant face,
The skill that marked him for the foremost place.

There is a ship steaming across the billow,
    That should have brought him to his mother's knee;
Did warning dreams hover around her pillow,
    Of the dear face she never ...

Nora Pembroke

Gone.

The heavens look down with chilly frown,
The sun blinks oot wi' watery e'e,
The drift flies fast upon the blast,
The naked trees moan shiveringly.

The sun is gone, by mists withdrawn,
Muffling his head in snow-clouds grey,
The earth turns white, against the night,
The laden winds drive furiously.

The flowers are slain that graced the plain,
The earth is locked wi' bitter frost;
And my heart cries to stormy skies
After the dreary loved and lost.

The spring will come, the flowers will bloom,
The leaves in beauty clothe the tree,
But never more, oh, never more,
Will my lost darling come to me.

Beyond the skies her happy eyes
Look fearlessly in eyes Divine;
The bitter smart, the hungry heart,
Waiting with empty arms, is mine.

Nora Pembroke

Forsaken.

Beside the open window she is lying,
    Through which comes softly in the balmy air,
And fans her wasted cheek; but slowly dying,
    She seeth not that autumn's finger fair
    Tinges the golden landscape everywhere.

She seeth not the glory of the maples,
    That in their crimson robes surround her home;
Nor the rich red of the ripe clustering apples
    In the old orchard, where can never come
    Her flying feet to stoop and gather some.

That is her home where in life's young May morning,
    She careless sung the joyful hours away;
A happy-hearted child, to whom no warning
    Came of the future shipwreck by the way,
    Or of the worshipped idol turned to clay.

The place has passed to strangers; unregretting,
    She looks upon the hom...

Nora Pembroke

Alas, My Brother!

(P McD)


We waited for him, and the anxious days
    Melted to years and floated slowly by
We spoke of him kind words of lofty praise,
    Of yearning love and tender sympathy.

We laid by what was his with reverent care--
    Started in dreams to greet him coming home--
But hope deferred left no relief but prayer,
    And heart-sore longings breathed in one word--Come.

We never dreamed of murderous ambush laid
    By savage redskins greedy for the prey--
Of him, our darling, in the forest laid
    Alone, alone, ebbing his life away.

He who would not have harmed the meanest thing,
    Who carried gentleness to such excess
That, to the stranger and the suffering,
    His purse meant help, his touch was a caress.

Ah me! tha...

Nora Pembroke