University of Virginia Library

Once when the traveller's coach o'er England's vales
Paused at its destined goal, an aged crone
Came from a neighbouring cottage, with such speed
As weary years might make, and with red eye
Scanning each passenger, in hurried tones
Demanded, “Has he come?”
“No, not to-day;
To-morrow,” was the answer. So, she turn'd,
Raising her shrivel'd finger, with a look
Half-credulous, half-reproachful, murmuring low,
“To-morrow,” and went homeward.
A sad tale
Was hers, they said. She and her husband shared,
From early days, a life of honest toil,
Content, though poor. One only son they had,
Healthful and bright, and to their simple thought
Both wise and fair. The father was a man
Austere and passionate, who loved his boy
With pride that could not bear to brook his faults
Nor patiently to mend them. As he grew
Toward man's estate, the mother's readier tact
Discern'd the change of character that meets
With chafing neck the yoke of discipline,
And humour'd it; while to the sire he seem'd
Still but a child, and so he treated him.
When eighteen summers threw a ripening tinge
O'er brow and cheek, the father, at some fault
Born more of rashness than of turpitude,
Struck him in wrath, and turn'd him from his door
With bitter words. The youth, who shared too deep
The fiery temper of his father's blood,
Vow'd to return no more.
The mother wept,
And wildly pray'd her husband to forgive,
And call him back. But he, with aspect stern,
Bade her be silent, adding that the boy
Was by her folly and indulgence spoil'd
Beyond reclaim. And so she shuddering took
The tear and prayer back to her inmost soul,
And waited till the passion-storm should slack,
And die away. Long was that night of wo,
Yet mid its dreary watch, she thank'd her God
When, after hours of tossing, blessed sleep
Stable o'er the moody man. With quiet morn
Relentings came, and that ill-smother'd pang
With which an unruled spirit takes the lash
Of keen remorse. Awhile with shame he strove,
And then he bade the woman seek her son,
If so she will'd. Alas! it was too late.
He was a listed soldier for a land
Beyond the seas, nor would their little all
Suffice to buy him back.
'Twere long to tell
How pain and loneliness and sorrow took
Their Shylock-payment for that passion-gust.
Or how the father, when his hour had come,
Said, with a trembling lip and hollow voice,
“Would that our boy were here!” or how the wife,
In tenderest ministrations round his bed,
And in her widow'd mourning, echoed still
His dying words, “Oh! that our boy were here.”

Years sped, and oft her soldier's letters came
Replete with filial love, and penitence,
And promise of return. But then, her soul
Was wrung by cruel tidings, that he lay
Wounded and sick in foreign hospitals.
A line traced faintly by his own dear hand
Relieved the torture. He was order'd home,
Among the invalids.
Joy, long unknown
Rush'd through her desolate heart. To hear his voice,
To gaze into his eyes, to part the locks
On his pure forehead, to prepare his food,
And nurse his feebleness, she ask'd no more.

Again his childhood's long forsaken couch
Put forth its snowy pillow, and once more,
The well-saved curtain of flower'd muslin deck'd
The lowly casement where he erst did love
To sit and read.
The cushion'd chair, that cheer'd
His father's lingering sickness, should be his;
And on the little table at his side
The hour-glass stood, whose ever-shifting sands
Had pleased him when a boy.
The appointed morn
Drew slowly on. The cheerful coals were heap'd
In the small grate, and ere the coach arrived
She with her throbbing heart stood eager there.
“Has Willie come?”
Each traveller, intent
On his own destination, heeded not
To make reply. “Coachman! is Willie there?”

“Willie? No! no!” in a hoarse, hurried voice,
Came the gruff answer. “Know ye not he's dead,
Good woman? Dead! And buried on the coast,
Four days ago.”
But a kind stranger mark'd
How the strong surge of speechless agony
Swept o'er each feature, and in pity said,
“Perchance he'll come to-morrow.”
Home she went,
Struck to the soul, and wept the livelong night,
Insensible to comfort, and to all
Who spake the usual words of sympathy,
Answering nothing.
But when day return'd,
And the slight hammer of the cottage-clock
Announced the hour at which her absent son
Had been expected, suddenly she rose,
And dress'd herself and threw her mantle on,
And as the coachman check'd his foaming steeds,
Stood eager by his side. “Is Willie there?
My Willie? Say!”
While he, by pity school'd,
Answer'd, “To-morrow.”
And though years have fled,
And still her limbs grow weaker, and the hairs
Whiter and thinner on her wrinkled brow,
Yet duly, when the shrill horn o'er the hills
Preludeth the approaching traveller
That poor, demented woman hurries forth
To speak her only question, and receive
That one reply, To-morrow.
And on that
Fragment of hope deferr'd, doth her worn heart
Feed and survive. Lull'd by those syren words,
“To-morrow,” which from childhood's trustful dawn
Have lured us all. When Reason sank
In the wild wreck of Grief, maternal Love
Caught at that empty sound, and clasp'd it close,
And grappled to it, like a broken oar,
To breast the shoreless ocean of despair.