's heart shall guide you through the glories of
the earth._

Then he looked up and mother knelt
Beside us, oh, her eyes were bright;
Her arms were like a lovely belt
All round us as we said Good-night
To father: _he_ was crying now,
But they were happy tears, somehow;
For there we saw dear mother lay
Her cheek against his cheek and say--
Hush, let me kiss those tears away.

_DEDICATION_

_What can a wanderer bring
To little ones loved like you?
You have songs of your own to sing
That are far more steadfast and true,
Crumbs of pity for birds
That flit o'er your sun-swept lawn,
Songs that are dearer than all our words
With a love that is clear as the dawn._

_What should a dreamer devise,
In the depths of his wayward will,
To deepen the gleam of your eyes
Who can dance with the Sun-child still?
Yet you glanced on his lonely way,
You cheered him in dream and deed,
And his heart is o'erflowing, o'erflowing to-day
With a love that--you never will need._

_What can a pilgrim teach
To dwellers in fairy-land?
Truth that excels all speech
You murmur and understand!
All he can sing you he brings;
But--one thing more if he may,
One thing more that the King of Kings
Will take from the child on the way._

_Yet how can a child of the night
Brighten the light of the sun?
How can he add a delight
To the dances that never are done?
Ah, what if he struggles to turn
Once more to the sweet old skies
With praise and praise, from the fetters that burn,
To the God that brightened your eyes?_

_Yes; he is weak, he will fail,
Yet, what if, in sorrows apart,
One thing, one should avail,
The cry of a grateful heart;
It has wings: they return through the night
To a sky where the light lives yet,
To the clouds that kneel on his mountain-height
And the path that his feet forget._

_What if he struggles and still
Fails and struggles again?
What if his broken will
Whispers the struggle is vain?
Once at least he has risen
Because he remembered your eyes;
Once they have brought to his earthly prison
The passion of Paradise._

_Kind little eyes that I love,
Eyes forgetful of mine,
In a dream I am bending above
Your