| |
| A LITTLE elbow leans upon your knee, | |
| Your tired knee that has so much to bear; | |
| A child’s dear eyes are looking lovingly | |
| From underneath a thatch of tangled hair. | |
| Perhaps you do not heed the velvet touch | 5 |
| Of warm, moist fingers, folding yours so tight; | |
| You do not prize this blessing overmuch,— | |
| You almost are too tired to pray to-night. | |
| |
| But it is blessedness! a year ago | |
| I did not see it as I do to-day— | 10 |
| We are so dull and thankless; and too slow | |
| To catch the sunshine till it slips away. | |
| And now it seems surpassing strange to me, | |
| That, while I wore the badge of motherhood, | |
| I did not kiss more oft and tenderly | 15 |
| The little child that brought me only good. | |
| |
| And if, some night when you sit down to rest, | |
| You miss this elbow from your tired knee,— | |
| This restless curling head from off your breast,— | |
| This lisping tongue that chatters constantly; | 20 |
| If from your own the dimpled hands had slipped, | |
| And ne’er would nestle in your palm again; | |
| If the white feet into the grave had tripped, | |
| I could not blame you for your heartache then. | |
| |
| I wonder so that mothers ever fret | 25 |
| At little children clinging to their gown; | |
| Or that the footprints, when the days are wet, | |
| Are ever black enough to make them frown. | |
| If I could find a little muddy boot, | |
| Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber-floor,— | 30 |
| If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot, | |
| And hear it patter in my house once more,— | |
| |
| If I could mend a broken cart to-day, | |
| To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky, | |
| There is no woman in God’s world could say | 35 |
| She was more blissfully content than I. | |
| But ah! the dainty pillow next my own | |
| Is never rumpled by a shining head; | |
| My singing birdling from its nest is flown,— | |
| The little boy I used to kiss is dead! | 40 |
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