Seite:Marsh Wolfe of the knoll.djvu/169

173

THE ARRIVAL.

For this didst pray the lagging breeze
To speed thy bark across the seas ?
Yet stay — thou art not all forgot !
Though other eyes may guess thee not,
Thy mother still doth know her son.
Yea, though thou come to her as one
Raised from the dead. Old Helda tries
To speak — but words her tongue denies.
Then, as if touched by charmed spell,
From off her bending shoulders fell
The weight of years, she stood upright,
Her eyes beamed with their earlier light ;
Forward she sprang — now, now he knows
His mother — on her neck he falls,
Her widowed arms about him close,
And weeping, on his name she calls :
"Melleff ! my son — or do I dream ?
Art thou my child, or dost but seem ?"
Aye, aye 'tis he, thou may'st believe
The lost is found, the dead doth live.