“Where Can She Be?”

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 armswhere 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 sweetwhere 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 cooledwhere 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 goneI pray: “O God, 
Be in the lonely homeswhen baby dies!”
 
 
“Where Can She Be?” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).