LITTLE feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load
I, nearer to the wayside inn,
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary thinking of your road.
O little hands! that weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
Have still so long to give or ask:
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow men,
Am weary thinking of your task.
O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,
Such limitless and strong desires;
Mine that so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned,
Now covers and conceals its fires.
O little souls! as pure and white,
And crystalline as rays of light
Direct from heaven, their source divine;
Refracted through the mist of years
How red my setting sun appears,
How lurid looks this soul of mine!
LIGHT footfall on the sounding floor,
And a tiny face peeps in at the door,
"Ah, mamma, I've found you out at last;
Why did you shut you in so fast?
Mamma, dolly has lost her shoe,
I can't find it anywhere; come and look too."
I laid down my pen with numerous sighs,
And started on this new enterprise;
Search and research were all in vain,
Till a bright thought was born in my brain.
I opened the oven door, and lo!
There lay the shoe as black as a sloe!
Laid in a patty-pan, baked for a pie,
"You've ruined your dolly's shoe," cried I;
She simply arched her eyebrows, when
She answered, "Make her another, then."
Vainly I seek some quiet nook,
In which to hide with my pen or book;
Vainly, for each new-found retreat
Is still invaded by pattering feet;
Pattering feet, and demands like these-
"Mamma, a pencil and ink, if you please;
See, I am coming to sit down by you;
Mamma is writing, I want to write, too."
Till a spirit that nature had never endowed
With marvelous patience, made murmur loud:
"At such a lot I may well repine,
Ne'er was more absolute thralldom than mine."
This, in the day of my pride and strength;
The coveted freedom came at length,
Came, and it lay on my spirit sore,
No pattering feet on the silent floor!
Quiet and leisure, could that suffice,
Quiet and leisure at such a price!
My favorite authors in vain invite;
"No little face will intrude to-night;"
I turned to my needle, the arrowy grief
That pierced me, on viewing the half-formed leaf,
On a little garment that ne'er will be worn;
Well I remember the sorrowful morn,
When two little arms were over it placed
And I threw it aside in petulant haste.
Mothers, weighed down with a mother's care,
Thinking your burdens too great to bear,
Tempted your hearts at their lot to repine,
Could ye but fathom the sorrow of mine!
Mothers, whose little ones round you throng,
Cherish them, sing to them all the day long.
Ye may rejoice, but never I,
Whose hopes entombed with my darling lie.
O joyless mother! O gairish sun!
O coveted wealth that the grave has won!
In this empty world I find no part-
Where shall I go with my breaking heart?
Why sinks not my frame beneath the stroke?
With anguish no words can depict I woke!
She lay there beside me in slumber mild,
My lost, and recovered, and living child!
Nor yet had the light of morning broke,
But her eyes to the touch of my lips awoke.
She marveled to see the smiles and tears
That greeted her waking: "Dearest of dears,
Mother and you will be merry to-day;
You shall help me write, and I'll help you play;
Dolly shall have two pairs of new shoes,
And anything else that my darling may choose."
The little arms around me were thrown,
The little breast heaved against my own;
Ye only, who thus have suffered, may guess
The hallowed rapture of that caress!
SHALL lose this life! it will disappear,
With its wonderful mystery;
Some day it will move no longer here,
But will vanish silently;
But I know I shall find it again once more,
In a beauty no song hath told;
It will meet with me at the golden door,
And round me forever fold.
Mother, Home, and Heaven.
'VE sometimes wondered, when my path has led
My feet reluctant into stranger's halls,
When, for a season, I have been deprived
Of the endearments and delights of home;
When a self-exile from the dear fireside,
To duty sacrificing all its joys,
I've dwelt 'mong strangers-strangers still, though kind Often, and pitying as friends could be
I've sometimes wondered if, of all earth's words,
There were three sweeter, dearer to the heart,
Than Mother, Home, and Heaven. I have thought
That if my hand were better skilled to wield
The artist's pencil than the poet's pen,
'Twould be my life task to produce a work
That should make every heart grow soft with tears
At thought of those three simple, soulful words.
"Mother!" The utterance of that sweet word
Turns back the wheels of Time, and I am left
A helpless infant on my mother's breast.
I see her smile of love, I feel the kiss
That falls as gently as a breath of balm
Upon my brow. Then, as in after time,
I'm bowing at her knee, my lisping tongue
Repeating the sweet prayer she taught me there.
And then I listen to her kind reproof,
Her words of counsel, and my heart is stirred
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