"
_Now the first dream is told unto its end._
Anigh the frozen mere a cottage stood,
A piercing wind swept round and shook the door,
The shrunken door, and easy way made good,
And drave long drifts of snow along the floor.
It sparkled there like diamonds, for the moon
Was shining in, and night was at the noon.
Before her dying embers, bent and pale,
A woman sat because her bed was cold;
She heard the wind, the driving sleet and hail,
And she was hunger-bitten, weak and old;
Yet while she cowered, and while the casement shook,
Upon her trembling knees she held a book,--
A comfortable book for them that mourn,
And good to raise the courage of the poor;
It lifts the veil and shows, beyond the bourne,
Their Elder Brother, from His home secure,
That for them desolate He died to win,
Repeating, "Come, ye blessed, enter in."
What thought she on, this woman? on her days
Of toil, or on the supperless night forlorn?
I think not so; the heart but seldom weighs
With conscious care a burden always borne;
And she was used to these things, had grown old
In fellowship with toil, hunger, and cold.
Then did she think how sad it was to live
Of all the good this world can yield bereft?
No, her untutored thoughts she did not give
To such a theme; but in their warp and weft
She wove a prayer: then in the midnight deep
Faintly and slow she fell away to sleep.
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