Old Mothers

I love old mothers--mothers with white hair
And kindly eyes, and lips grown softly sweet,
With murmured blessings over sleeping babes,
There is a something in their quiet grace
That speaks the calm of Sabbath afternoons;
A knowledge in their deep, unfaltering eyes
That far outreaches all philosophy.

Time, with caressing touch about them weaves
The silver-threaded fairy-shawl of age,
While all the echoes of forgotten songs
Seem joined to lend a sweetness to their speech.

Old mothers!--as they pass with slow-timed step,
Their trembling hands cling gently to youth's strength.
Sweet mothers!--as they pass, one sees again
Old garden walks, old roses, and old loves.

Charles Sarsfield Ross

I Saw Two Clouds At Morning

I saw two clouds at morning,
Tinged with the rising sun,
And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one:
I thought that morning cloud was blest,
It moved so sweetly to the west.

I saw two summer currents
Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course, with silent force,
In peace each other greeting:
Calm was their course through banks of green,
While dimpling eddies played between.

Such be your gentle motion,
Till life's last pulse shall beat;
Like summer's beam, and summer's stream,
Float on, in joy, to meet
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease--0
A purer sky, where all is peace.

John Gardiner Brainard

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