There she crouched with face as white,
More ghastly, by the flickering lantern light,
Than sheeted corpse. The pale blue lips drawn tight,
Wide parted, showing all the pearly teeth,
And eyes on some dark object underneath,
Washed by the turbid waters, fix'd like stone--
One arm and hand stretched out, and rigid grown,
Grasping, as in the death-grip, Jenny's frock.
There she lay, drown'd.
They lifted her from out her watery bed--
Its covering gone, the lovely little head
Hung like a broken snowdrop all aside,
And one small hand. The mother's shawl was tied
Leaving that free about the child's small form,
As was her last injunction--"fast and warm,"
Too well obeyed--too fast! A fatal hold,
Affording to the scrag, by a thick fold
That caught and pinned her to the river's bed.
While through the reckless water overhead,
Her life breath bubbled up.
"She might have lived,
Struggling like Lizzie," was the thought that rived
The wretched mother's heart when she heard all,
"But for my foolishness about that shawl.
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