The Keys Of Morning

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