Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/112

110 Fireside blessings and motherhood. Little ones playing around my feet. How it all unfolds like a magic screen, Tender and glowing and clear and glad, The wonderful mother I might have been, The beautiful children I might have had; Romping and laughing and shrill with glee, Oh, I see them now and I see them plain. Darlings! Come nestle up close to me, You comfort me so, and you’re just… Cocaine.

It’s Life that’s all to blame: We can’t do what we will; She robes us with her shame, She crowns us with her ill. I do not care, because I see with bitter calm, Life made me what I was, Life makes me what I am. Could I throw back the years, It all would be the same; Hunger and cold and tears, Misery, fear and shame, And then the old refrain, Cocaine! Cocaine!

A love-child I, so here my mother came, Where she might live in peace with none to blame. And how she toiled! Harder than any slave, What courage! patient, hopeful, tender, brave. We had a little room at Lavilette,