The Keys of Morning

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.