The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

O my boy! O my heart, it will break!
And how like his father he sat!
So cruel and cold! and his voice did not shake,
When he shattered my life and my hope, for the sake
Of a creature like that!

Not that it matters how soon
My poor dregs of life may depart:
What are we mothers made for, but to croon
A soft cradle-song to a low cradle-tune,
With a slow-breaking heart?

O Woman! whose love is thy life,
Thy love-life is sorrow and pain;
As the girl's love dawns, so her troubles grow rife,
And they darken on down through the mother and wife,
Drip-dripping like rain,

O my boy! and I hoped, when they brought
My baby to lie on my breast,
Now, at length, I shall find all the love I have sought,
Now, at length, I shall bask in the bliss I have got,
And my heart shall have rest.

From me thy life came, and by me
Shall its young powers be nourished, alone;
No wanton shall poison its pure springs to thee
With milk of coarse passion, but it shall all be
Sweet and clean as my own.

And so, with pained pleasure, he drew
His life, day by day, out of mine,
And mine was the one tender hand that he knew:
I suffered none else, for his kiss was like dew,
And his breath like sweet wine.

O my beauty! my hero! What dreams
I dreamed, as he smiled in my face!
What hopes lit my life as with laughing sun-gleams,
When I kissed into silence his lustiest screams
With a mirthful embrace.

Now, I pictured him soldier of fame
Battling on in the thick of the fight;
Now, a statesman whose eloquence kindled a flame
That fired all the land, till they shouted his name
As the symbol of right.

Then I sighed, and said, Let him be good,
And I heed not what else is in store:
But ah! that was not what the mother's heart would,
And still it went back to its loftier mood,
And panted for more.

279

And what, if God, wroth at my pride,
Has humbled me now for my sin?
For I knew in my heart, when I said it, I lied
And I knew it was dull moral prosing to hide
The proud thought within.

I gave up all, all for my boy—
All the world where, they said, I once shone;
And the girl-wife, tremulous, timid and coy,
Grew strong in the pride of a mother's great joy,
And for him lived alone.

I grudged every moment away,
I grudged every task not for him;
As he lay on my lap, I would croodle and play,
As he lay in soft sleep, I would watch him and pray
Till my wet eyes grew dim.

I grudged even his father, when he
Would toss up my child in the air,
Or when he would ride the high-horse on his knee,
Or the little one laughed aloud in his glee,
As he tangled his hair.

But sometimes, I thought, it were good
That another should come to divide
This so jealous love with its passionate mood;
Yet what other baby, like him, ever could
Be my joy and my pride?

Then I'd clasp him close to my breast,
And kiss him, body and limb;
It was wicked to dream even, or say it in jest,
That another could ever be fondly caressed
With the love I gave him.

And then as he grew up apace,
I went back to schooling once more,
And took up old studies of number and case,
And the great tale of Troy, and of that haughty race
By the brown Tiber's shore.

For I trembled to think he might read
What from youth should be hidden with care,
And be smirched with some grossness of word or deed,
Or filled with false thoughts, that, like thistle-down seed,
Fly about in the air.

O my boy! Oh the bliss of those days,
When I pored o'er his Latin and Greek!
And I knew all his thoughts, and I saw all his plays,
And I noted him manly and bright in his ways,
And gentle and meek.

And now comes this woman to steal
All the fruit of my life and its bliss,
All the joy and the hope that I ever shall feel,
And plants me a death-wound, nothing can heal,
With her Judas-like kiss.

She is years and years older than he,
And has trapped him, I know, with her guile,
For there's nothing he'll hear now, and nothing will see
But goodness in her, and unfairness in me,
As he basks in her smile.

280

Poor boy! if you knew! That wan smile
Has been tried upon scores before you;
'Tis a well-worn look, you might see by its style,
Has done duty for years, for her eyes, the meanwhile,
Are not smiling nor true.

Charm! ay, such as practised ones wield;
With a hard, hungry look in her eye,
And a lithe, supple form, and a heart that is steeled,
Which no love can touch, and which no love will yield,
Till the day that she die.

Of course he must marry her now;
He has gone quite too far to draw back;
But oh, what a sorrow is hid in the vow
To love the unloving, and make his heart bow
To the yoke till it crack!

She has poisoned his mind against me,
And will poison it more if she can:
Oh that poor jealous heart of hers! Can he not see,
It is not like a mother's? But no one can be
Half so blind as a man.

No; their wedding I will not go near;
I never will darken her door,
Nor break bread of hers, nor partake of her cheer—
Far rather I'd follow my boy on his bier
To his rest evermore!

I have thought, if I only could see
A baby of his in my lap,
A baby of his smiling up from my knee,
Oh, to nurse both mother and baby would be
The blessedest hap!

But she! that woman! her child!
Do you wonder it makes me sad,
When I know that my boy has been so beguiled?
It is weeks and months since ever I've smiled,
And it's making me bad.

She is deep—Oh, she well knows her game!—
And is ever so gentle and meek;
She sees I don't like her; but loves all the same
Every one that he loves, every one of his name,
All the days of the week!

And that drives me mad, for I know
He believes every word that she says.
If only by word or by look she would show
The false, scheming heart that is hidden below
Her soft, silky ways!

And her cunning is breeding hate,
And wickedest thoughts in me:
She might be another man's happy mate,
But to me and my house she is like a dark Fate
That I shudder to see.

God, keep me from sin and wrath:
Had I lived in the old Greek time
When hate killed the King of men in his bath,
I too might have sown the dread aftermath
Of a horrible crime!

Who knows what one might have been?
Who knows what the heart might do?
Oh the thoughts of guilt I have sometimes seen,
Trying the shape of their guilt to screen
From my doubtful view!

281

And my husband goes, meanwhile,
Careless and easy of heart,
Daffing my cares with a mocking smile;
Ay, that was ever his hateful style
Of playing his part.

And my boy grows like him in that,
Liker him every day;
And oh so cruel and cool as he sat!
And oh so light he jested at
What I tried to say.

Once how I hoped he would wed—
For I know that she loves him dear—
That saintly child of the sainted dead!
They were born for each other, I always said,
The self-same year.

But my wishes are nothing to him:
I am blind, of course, as a bat,
For my eyes with the tears of love are dim;
And my cup of sorrow is filled to the brim—
For a creature like that.

O mothers! whose love is such bliss
While the baby lies soft on your knee,
With each fond word, and each rapturous kiss,
Ye are sowing the seeds of a grief like this
Which has come to me.