 | Poems (1845) |  |
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‘A MOTHER'S LOVE.’
‘Unlike all other things earth knows,(All else may fail or change,)
The love in a Mother's heart that glows,
Nought earthly can estrange.
Concentrated, and strong, and bright,
A vestal flame it glows
With pure, self-sacrificing light,
Which no cold shadow knows.
All that by mortal can be done,
A Mother ventures for her son:
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Her bosom beats with ecstasy;
And though he own nor worth nor charm,
To him her faithful heart is warm.
Though wayward passions round him close,
And fame and fortune prove his foes;
Through every change of good and ill,
Unchanged, a mother loves him still.
Even love itself, than life more dear,—
Its interchange of hope and fear;
Its feeling oft a-kin to madness;
Its fevered joys, and anguish-sadness;
Its melting moods of tenderness,
And fancied wrongs, and fond redress,
Hath nought to form so strong a tie
As her deep sympathies supply.
And when those kindred cords are broken
Which twine around the heart;
When friends their farewell word have spoken,
And to the grave depart;
When parents, brothers, husband, die,
And desolation only
At every step meets her dim eye,
Inspiring visions lonely,—
Love's last and strongest root below,
Which widowed Mothers only know,
Watered by each successive grief,
Puts forth a fresher, greener leaf:
Divided streams unite in one,
And deepen round her only son;
And when her early friends are gone,
She lives and breathes in him alone.’
| Poems (1845) | |