The Sailor's Mother

   "O whence do you come,
Figure in the night-fog that chills me numb?"
"I come to you across from my house up there,
And I don't mind the brine-mist clinging to me
   That blows from the quay,
For I heard him in my chamber, and thought you unaware."
   "But what did you hear,
That brought you blindly knocking in this middle-watch so drear?"
"My sailor son's voice as 'twere calling at your door,
And I don't mind my bare feet clammy on the stones,
   And the blight to my bones,
For he only knows of THIS house I lived in before."
   "Nobody's nigh,
Woman like a skeleton, with socket-sunk eye."
"Ah--nobody's nigh!  And my life is drearisome,
And this is the old home we loved in many a day
   Before he went away;
And the salt fog mops me.  And nobody's come!"