And affording for his rest hours many a cool and sweet retreat.

When Mother Sleeps

When mother sleeps, a slamming door
Disturbs her not at all;
A man might walk across the floor
Or wander through the hall
A pistol shot outside would not
Drive slumber from her eyes--
But she is always on the spot
The moment baby cries.

The thunder crash she would not hear,
Nor shouting in the street;
A barking dog, however near,
Of sleep can never cheat
Dear mother, but I've noticed this
To my profound surprise:
That always wide-awake she is
The moment baby cries.

However weary she may be,
Though wrapped in slumber deep,
Somehow it always seems to me
Her vigil she will keep.
Sound sleeper that she is, I take
It in her heart there lies
A love that causes her to wake
The moment baby cries.

The Weaver

The patter of rain on the roof,
The glint of the sun on the rose;
Of life, these the warp and the woof,
The weaving that everyone knows.
Now grief with its consequent tear,
Now joy with its luminous smile;
The days are the threads of the year--
Is what I am weaving worth while?

What pattern have I on my loom?
Shall my bit of tapestry please?
Am I working with gray threads of gloom?
Is there faith in the figures I seize?
When my fingers are lifeless and cold,
And the threads I no longer can weave
Shall there be there for men to behold
One sign of the things I believe?

God sends me the gray days and rare,
The threads from his bountiful skein,
And many, as sunshine, are fair.
And some are as dark as the rain.
And I think as I toil to express
My life through the days slipping by,
Shall my tapestry prove a success?
What sort of a weaver am I?

Am I making the most of the red
And the bright strands of luminous gold?
Or blotting them out with the thread
By which all men's failure is told?
Am I picturing life as despair,