THE MOTHER’S PRIDE.
Reading edition
———
BY MRS. C. H. W. ESLING.
———
How beauteous is childhood—how blessed, how calm,
An eye full of sunshine—a bosom all balm—
A free gushing heart of unfetter’d delight,
Like a fount of pure water, untroubled, and bright.
Such—such is the morning of innocent youth,
When hope’s every promise seems gilded with truth,
When flowers lay scatter’d in heaps ’neath our feet,
And each passing gale brings its odorous sweet.
How fair to that baby—in half-dreamy rest
Reclining its head on a fond mother’s breast,
Looks the whole outward world to those soft smiling eyes!
How cloudless its visions—how brilliant its skies!
How clear the blue heaven, whose bright borrow’d gleams
Are reflected far, far o’er the sun-lighted streams!
How gentle the music of low melody
That is whisper’d from blossom, and flower, and tree!
The earth, like an Eden, is glowing with joy,
No serpent hath enter’d its peace to destroy,
A heaven-mission’d Angel—still watches the whole,
’Tis the spirit of God, in that baby’s pure soul.
Well, well may that mother look anxiously there
On that fair, snowy brow, all unshadow’d by care;
Then turn to the future with wondering gaze,
To trace on its pages its fast coming days.
How long will her ringlets of raven-like fold,
Lie darkly amid its thick tresses of gold?
That seem in their beauty of darkness, and light,
Like the sunlight of morning in dalliance with night.
She gazes upon him—her idol, her joy,
The hope of her bosom—her sunny-haired boy,
And feels the whole world in its domain so wide,
Hath nought in its gift, like her darling, her pride.
She thinks of the days when a glad little child,
Her heart, as her baby’s, was playfully wild—
Of her own watchful mother—her blessing, her prayer,
Who guarded those days from the footsteps of care.
Her far smiling home rises full on her view,
When she—like a blossom of summer growth, grew,
The fields where she roved in her innocent mirth,
And her indoor enjoyments around the old hearth.
Those days have departed—their sunlight has fled,
And pale is the ray that gleams over the dead;
The stateliest tree may be felled to the ground,
And its branches unguarded, be scatter’d around.
Her household is broken—her father no more
Recounts to his children the bright days of yore;
’Tis broken and dreary—her fond mother lies
Encircled by earth, and watch’d o’er by the skies.
She sees the old grave-yard—each white gleaming tomb,
And the forms that are slumbering in darkness and gloom,
And a tear of remembrance, and sadden’d regret
She sheds for the homestead she ne’er can forget.
These dreamings are casting their shadows e’en now,
And dimming the gladness that erst deck’d her brow—
Her heart wanders back—when to all things beside
She was like her own baby—a dear mother’s pride.