Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/446

There was neither glimmer nor ghost,
⁠There was neither spirit nor spark,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
⁠"'Tis crying for me in the dark."

And the nodding mother sighed:
⁠"'Tis sorrow makes ye dull;
"Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern,
⁠"Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?"

"The terns are blown inland,
⁠"The grey gull follows the plough.
"'T was never a bird, the voice I heard,
⁠"O mother, I hear it now!"

"Lie still, dear lamb, lie still;
⁠"The child is passed from harm,
"'Tis the ache in your breast that broke your rest,
⁠"And the feel of an empty arm."

She put her mother aside,
⁠"In Mary's name let be!
"For the peace of my soul I must go," she said,
⁠And she went to the calling sea.

In the heel of the wind-bit pier,
⁠Where the twisted weed was piled,
She came to the life she had missed by an hour
⁠For she came to a little child.

She laid it into her breast,
⁠And back to her mother she came,
But it would not feed and it would not heed,
⁠Though she gave it her own child's name.