Isabella Fyvie Mayo Poems

I'm sitting in a shady room,
A dainty scent pervades its gloom,
The perfume from a withered flower
Gathered—who knows in what sweet hour?
Or pressed by what fair lips which must
Have mingled long ere this with dust?
...

Do I not wish I was like other folk?
Well, if a wish would do me any good
I think,—I almost think, sir,—that I should.
But if a lame limb's my appointed yoke,
It's not as bad as many a one might be,
It's easier p'raps to carry than to see!
...

The stormy afternoon was past,
And in the dim grey sky,
Between great hoary clouds, the sun
Looked out with lurid eye:
And we, two strangers from the town, the sea breeze yearning for,
Walked down between the fishers' cots, and went toward the shore.
...

From window, curtainless and high,
There gleamed a sickly, yellow light;
On other casements darkness fell,
But that shone all the dreary night.
...

Just where the early sunbeams fall,
And waken me at dawn,
To hear the lark sing praise because
Another day is born,
...

Falls the sunlight, dim and faint,
On her face, like face of saint,
On her thin, white hand:
Oh, the patient spirit pines
For the brighter sun which shines
In a brighter land!
...

Alas ! when after years apart,
When every thought of wrong and strife,
And every stinging of the heart
With which lost love is often rife
...

Since I walked careless in the noisy street,
With common words for any I might meet,
And did the petty duties each day brought,
And grievous troubles from small sources wrought,
Ah, me! it seems a weary while ago.
...

Draw back the curtain, let the light
Upon the chamber's gloom,
That I may think my son asleep,
Not ready for the tomb!
Ah! what he was, he always looked, but ne'er so fair as now;
The angels' wakening kiss has left a glory on his brow!
...

We both walked slowly o'er the yellow grass,
Beneath the sunset sky:
And then he climbed the stile I did not pass,
And there we said Good-bye.
...