Meekly as Mary came to Bethlehem,
But with her mother's mission half fulfilled,
She came into the wood. And over them—
Her plodding mate, herself, her son—was spilled,
Through verdant groins and arches far aloft,
Largess of sunshine, honey-sweet and soft.
Humble as Mary's manger was her bed;
Lowly her life and station; but her dreams—
Her mother dreams—soared to the stars overhead
And searched unseen horizons for their themes.
Thus, building stately castles for her child,
She lived in squalor and was reconciled.
And so she lived in patient solitude,
And so she passed away, without complaint,
Drudging and dreaming in the silent wood,
A pioneer, a mother and a saint,
Solaced and satisfied for that her son
Might some day scale the heights her vision won.
They buried her, there, in the forest gloom,
Mourned her a space, then stolidly moved on
And left the winds to strew her lonely tomb
With withered leaves and drifting snow, anon,
But, sleeping there, perhaps—perhaps she knew
When all her mother dreams at last came true.