The Indian Mother

The Indian Mother

Full fed with thoughts and knowledges sublime,

And thundering oracles of the gods, that make

Man’s mind the flower of action and of time,

I was one day where beggars come to take

Doles ere they die. An Indian mother there,

Young, but so wretched that her staring eyes

Shone like the winter wolf’s with ravening glare

Of hunger, struck me. For to much surprise

A three-year child well nourish’d at her breast,

Wither’d with famine, still she fed and press’d⁠—

For she was dying. ‘I am too poor,’ she said,

‘To feed him otherwise’; and with a kiss

Fell back and died. And the soul answeréd,

‘In spite of all the gods and prophets—this!’

Bangalore, 1890-3.