After the baby died the house seemed dark
And cold, as if the sun had passed it by,
Even though the month was June, and not a cloud
Troubled the brightness of the golden sky.
And it was, oh! so lonely and so still.
The kitten, undisturbed, curled on the floor,
And fifty times a day with questioning eyes
The old house-dog came to the open door,
And looked as if he said: “Why, where is Nell―
The little girl that used to play with me?
And pull my curls, and clasp my faithful neck
With tender, loving arms―where can she be?”
There was a new note in the plaintive song
Her pet canary sang all day to me―
A note that said: “That little merry girl,
Whose laugh was music sweet―where can she be?”
The very wind that blew from off the hills
Stole grieving thro’ the house, most lonesomely,
And sighed: “Where are the tangled curls I tossed,
The warm red cheeks I cooled―where can they be?”
Her doll sleeps in its little snowy bed―
Her oldest, shabbiest doll she loved the best―
Just as she “tucked it in” the last, last time,
With many a pat and kiss upon it pressed.
And oh, how often every day the tears
Come leaping up to my poor, aching eyes,
And I go groping blindly to that bed,
That tiny bed where her “dear dolly” lies,
And lay my face close to its battered face,
Which her dear tears and kisses washed like rain―
Yet mindful not to change one bit of lace―
And weep and sob, and weep and sob again.
And then, remembering in my bitter grief
Somewhere, perhaps, some other “dolly” lies―
Its little mother gone―I pray: “O God,
Be in the lonely homes―when baby dies!”
“Where Can She Be?” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).