The Sailor's Mother

"O whence do you come,
Figure in the night-fog that chills me numb?"
"I come to you across from my house up there,
And I don't mind the brine-mist clinging to me
That blows from the quay,
For I heard him in my chamber, and thought you unaware."
"But what did you hear,
That brought you blindly knocking in this middle-watch so drear?"
"My sailor son's voice as 'twere calling at your door,
And I don't mind my bare feet clammy on the stones,
And the blight to my bones,
For he only knows of THIS house I lived in before."
"Nobody's nigh,
Woman like a skeleton, with socket-sunk eye."
"Ah nobody's nigh! And my life is drearisome,
And this is the old home we loved in many a day
Before he went away;
And the salt fog mops me. And nobody's come!"
From "To Please his Wife."