The Cradle

HOW steadfastly she worked at it!
How lovingly had drest
With all her would-be-mother’s wit
That little rosy nest!

How longingly she ’d hung on it!—
It sometimes seemed, she said,
There lay beneath its coverlet
A little sleeping head.

He came at last, the tiny guest,
Ere bleak December fled;
That rosy nest he never prest…
Her coffin was his bed.