'How did I feel?' The little wight Fill'd me, unfatherly, with fright! So grim it gazed, and, out of the sky, There came, minute, remote, the cry, Piercing, of original pain. I put the wonder back to Jane, And her delight seem'd dash'd, that I, Of strangers still by nature shy, Was not familiar quite so soon With her small friend of many a moon. But, when the new-made Mother smiled, She seem'd herself a little child, Dwelling at large beyond the law By which, till then, I judged and saw; And that fond glow which she felt stir For it, suffused my heart for her; To whom, from the weak babe, and thence To me, an influent innocence, Happy, reparative of life, Came, and she was indeed my wife, As there, lovely with love she lay, Brightly contented all the day To hug her sleepy little boy, In the reciprocated joy Of touch, the childish sense of love, Ever inquisitive to prove Its strange possession, and to know If the eye's report be really so. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CAGED GOLDFINCH by THOMAS HARDY AN UNINSCRIBED MONUMENT - BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS by HERMAN MELVILLE PANORAMA by WILLIAM ROSE BENET A SLEEPY SONG by CARRIE JACOBS BOND CORYDON'S SUPPLICATION TO PHILLIS by NICHOLAS BRETON ON THE DEATH OF EMILY BRONTE by CHARLOTTE BRONTE |