ed, showing all the pearly teeth,
And eyes on some dark object underneath,
Wash'd by the turbid water, fix'd like stone--
One arm and hand stretch'd out, and rigid grown,
Grasping, as in the death-gripe--Jenny's frock.
There she lay drown'd. Could he sustain that shock,
The doating father? Where's the unriven rock
Can bide such blasting in its flintiest part
As that soft sentient thing--the human heart?

They lifted her from out her wat'ry bed--
Its covering gone, the lonely little head
Hung like a broken snowdrop all aside--
And one small hand. The mother's shawl was tied,
Leaving _that_ free, about the child's small form,
As was her last injunction--"_fast_ and warm"--
Too well obeyed--too fast! A fatal hold
Affording to the scrag by a thick fold
That caught and pinn'd her in the river's bed,
While through the reckless water overhead
Her life-breath bubbled up.

"She might have lived
Struggling like Lizzy," was the thought that rived
The wretched mother's heart when she knew all.
"But for my foolishness about that shawl--
And Master would have kept them back the day;
But I was wilful--driving them away
In such wild weather!"

Thus the tortured heart,
Unnaturally against itself takes part,
Driving the sharp edge deeper of a woe
Too deep already. They had raised her now,
And parting the wet ringlets from her brow,
To that, and the cold cheek, and lips as cold,
The father glued his warm ones, ere they roll'd
Once more the fatal shawl--her winding-sheet--
About the precious clay. One heart still beat,
Warm'd by _his heart's_ blood. To his _only child_
He turn'd him, but her piteous moaning mild
Pierced him afresh--and now she knew him not.--
"Mother!"--she murmur'd--"who says I forgot?
Mother! indeed, indeed, I kept fast hold,
And tied the shawl quite close--she can't be cold--
But she won't move--we slipt--I don't know how--
But I held on--and I'm so weary now--
And it's so dark and cold! oh dear! oh dear!--
And she won't move--if daddy was but here!"

* * * * *

Poor