While at her bedroom window once,
Learning her task for school,
Little Louisa lonely
In the morning clear and cool,
She slanted her small bead-brown
Across the empty street,
And saw Death softly watching
In the sunshine pale and sweet.
His was a long lean sallow face;
He sat with half-shut eyes,
Like a old sailor in a
Becalmed 'neath tropic skies.
Beside him in the dust he had
His staff and shady hat;
These, peeping small,
Louisa
Quite clearly where she sat -The thinness of his coal-black locks,
His hands so long and
They scarcely seemed to grasp at
The keys that hung between:
Both were of gold, but one was small,
And with this last did
Wag in the air, as if to say,"Come hither, child, to me!" Louisa laid her lesson
On the cold window-sill;
And in the sleepy sunshine
Went softly down,
She stood in the half-opened door,
And peeped.
But strange to
Where Death just now had sunning
Only a shadow lay:
Just the tall chimney's round-topped cowl,
And the small sun behind,
Had with its shadow in the
Called sleepy Death to mind.
But most she thought how strange it
Two keys that he should bear,
And that, when beckoning, he should
The littlest in the air.
