POETRY.
WAKING AT NIGHT.
WHEN I wake up alone at night
I feel as if I had no eyes ; I stare and stare with all my might, But only blackness round me lies.
I listen for the faintest sound, And, though I strain with either ear, The dark is silent all around : It's just as if I could not hear.
But if I lie with limbs held fast, A sort of sound conies like a sigh,— Perhaps the darkness rushing past, Perhaps the minutes passing by; Perhaps the thoughts in people's heads, That keel; so quiet all the day, Wait till they're sleeping in their beds, Then rustle out and fly away !
Or else this noise like whirring wings, That dies with the first streak of light, May be the sound of baby things, All growing, growing, in the night.
Children, and kitty-cats, and pups, Or even little buds and flowers, Daisies perhaps, and buttercups, All growing in the midnight hours.
And yet it seems of me a part, And nothing far away or queer.
It's just the beating of my heart, That sounds so strange as I lie here !
I do not know why this should be : When darkness hides the world from sight,
I feel that all is gone but me—
A little child and the black night.
MABEL DEARMER.
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