Page:The Cornhill magazine (Volume 1).djvu/214

"Was it for this her baby arms
    About my neck were flung?
Was it for this I found such charms
    In her uncertain tongue?
Was it for this those vain alarms
    My mother-soul unstrung?

"Oh, horrible! to wish my child—
    My sole one left—unborn,
And, seeing her so meek and mild,
    To hold such gifts in scorn;
My nature is grown waste and wild,
    My heart with fury torn!"

Speechless—enchanted to the spot—
    The girl could scarce divine
The whole disaster of her lot,—
    But without sound or sign
She cried, "O Mother! love him not;—
    Oh! let his love be mine!

"You have had years of full delight,
    Your girlhood's passion-dream
Was realized to touch and sight
    As bright as it could seem;—
And now you interpose, like Night,
    Before my life's first gleam.

"Yet you were once what I am now,—
    You wore your maiden prize;
You told me of my Father, how
    You lived but in his eyes;—
You spoke of the perpetual vow,
    The troth that never dies.

"Dear Mother! dearer, kinder far,
    If by my childhood's bed
Your care had never stood to bar
    Misfortune from my head;—
But laid me where my brothers are,
    Among the quiet dead.