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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SONNET by JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN EVENING by ISABELLA LOCKHART ALDERMAN CAN YOU HEAR IT? by THERESA DRULEY BLACK DERWENT; AN ODE: MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD by JOHN CARR NIL PEJUS EST CAELIBE VITA by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE |