Poetry

A while back I purchased a tattered poetry book at a yard sale for ten cents. I picked it up and began reading this afternoon and soon could not see through my tears.

The Childless Mother’s Lullaby
by Ella Rhoads Higginson, 1925

Oh, many’s the time in the evening
When the light has fled o’er the sea,
That I dream alone in the gloaming
Of the joys that are not for me;
And oft in my sorrowful bosom
Swells up the mother-love flame,
And I clasp with my arms that are trembling
My child that never came. . . .

The hours swim on the midnight,
The moon looks over the hill,
And the u-lu-lu of the night owl
Sinks mournfully and shrill;
The solitude aches with rapture,
And my heart with the mother-love flame
As I sing alone in the gloaming
To the child that never came.