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.