Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/113

Rh So small, so neat, so clean, I see it yet. Poor mother! sewing, sewing late at night, Her wasted face beside the candlelight, This Paris crushed her. How she used to sigh! And as I watched her from my bed I knew She saw red roofs against a primrose sky And glistening fields and apples dimmed with dew. Hard times we had. We counted every sou, We sewed sacks for a living. I was quick… Four busy hands to work instead of two. Oh, we were happy there, till she fell sick.…

My mother lay, her face turned to the wall, And I, a girl of sixteen, fair and tall, Sat by her side, all stricken with despair, Knelt by her bed and faltered out a prayer. A doctor’s order on the table lay, Medicine for which, alas! I could not pay; Medicine to save her life, to soothe her pain. I sought for something I could sell, in vain… All, all was gone! The room was cold and bare; Gone blankets and the cloak I used to wear; Bare floor and wall and cupboard, every shelf– Nothing that I could sell… except myself.

I sought the street, I could not bear To hear my mother moaning there. I clutched the paper in my hand. ’Twas hard. You cannot understand… I walked as martyr to the flame, Almost exalted in my shame.