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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE CHILDLESS WOMAN, by THOMAS AUGUSTINE DALY
First Line: When I was but a little tot
Last Line: Within the nurseries of heaven!
Alternate Author Name(s): Daly, T. A.
Subject(s): Children; Mothers; Women; Childhood
First Line: When I was but a little tot
Last Line: Within the nurseries of heaven!
Alternate Author Name(s): Daly, T. A.
Subject(s): Children; Mothers; Women; Childhood
WHEN I was but a little tot
And wore a checkered pinafore,
I mothered baby-dolls a lot;
So did my playmate, Emmy Moore.
And yet her brood of make-believes
Was not to be compared with mine --
In all the scenes that memory weaves
Still fresh and fair their faces shine!
I was the prouder mother then,
And, likely, dreamed more dreams than she,
But all my dreams are "might-have-been,"
While all of hers have come to be.
We've both been mated many a year,
And both our heads are growing gray,
But childless now I linger here
And watch her seven out at play.
It cannot be that He who put
The mother-yearning in my soul
Designed forevermore to shut
The gleaming gateway of its goal.
I sometimes think if, quite resigned,
I envy not my playmate's seven,
My dolls, transfigured, I shall find
Within the nurseries of Heaven!
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