Poems / Mary E. Tucker [electronic text]

"DID YOU CALL ME, FATHER?"

She opened the door, and said in an alarmed tone: "Father, was that you calling me?" And again, "Father!" And once again, after listening, "Father! I thought I heard you call me twice before!" No response.

Dickens' "Mutual Friend."

" DID you call me, Father?" Ah no, 'twas the surge, Swelling a requiem, wailing a dirge: Back, maiden! create still thy images rare, Thy bright glowing castles, so frail yet so fair.

"Did you call me, Father?" He hears thee no more, Life's tide has run out, he has drifted ashore; No bright angels guided the sinner's frail bark — He was wrecked on the breakers, alone, in the dark.

"I thought that I heard you call twice before this, And, Father, I felt on my brow your last kiss; Come back to me, Father, come back to your child, Ere you be in the darkness, by false lights beguiled."

Go gaze in the hollow, way down by the flare, Say, beautiful dreamer, what seest thou there? Not the form of thy Father, cold, silent, and dead, With the waves, and winds toying around his grey head.

Thou seest the future, bright, happy and free, When thy present through veil of past years thou shalt see: Now, garlands of hope, with thy love, and faith blend, All fading, alas! as the gold sparks ascend.

Did you call me, Father? No, 'twas but the wind, As searching, and prying, some secret to find; It wailed round the dwelling, again sought the shore, And lifted the rags from the body once more.

His grey hair is all stiff, with the cold ocean brine, His eyes have a look which no word can define — As if in his struggles, while borne by the tide, He thought of his darling, he called her, and died.

"Did you call me, Father?" Awake, girl, awake! Thy burden of sorrow, within thy heart take, Awake from thy dreaming, each joy's fraught with care, And Life's but a "hollow, way down by the flare."