To My Mother In Canada, From Sick-Bed In Italy

Dear mother, from the sure sun and warm seas     Of Italy, I, sick, remember now     What sometimes is forgot in times of ease,     Our love, the always felt but unspoken vow.     So send I beckoning hands from here to there,     And kiss your black once, now white thin-grown hair     And your stooped small shoulder and pinched brow.     Here, mother, there is sunshine every day;     It warms the bones and breathes upon the heart;     But you I see out-plod a little way,     Bitten with cold; your cheeks and fingers smart.     Would you were here, we might in temples lie,     And look from azure into azure sky,     And paradise achieve, slipping death's part.     But now 'tis time for sleep: I think no speech     There needs to pass between us what we mean,     For we soul-venturing mingle each with each.     So, mother, pass across the world unseen     And share in me some wished-for dream in you;     For so brings destiny her pledges true,     The mother withered, in the son grown green.