THOSE tender mothers! When such little things, Such helpless, fragile little things we are,-- How they pray God for us! How they make war For us with death! and spread their mother-wings About us full of anxious quiverings, And spying each least peril from afar, With their own arms, thereto made mighty, bar The way from harms and smile at adder-stings, And brave the tigers merciless and wild, In their deep love for us; and by and by, When we are men, to strive and stand alone, We clasp our desperate, aching heads and moan; Would God my mother had left me to die! Would I had died a sinless little child! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOLY THURSDAY, FR. SONGS OF EXPERIENCE by WILLIAM BLAKE THE QUESTION ANSWER'D by WILLIAM BLAKE THE MASK by CLARISSA SCOTT DELANY THE PRETTY MILKMAID by MOTHER GOOSE TO JANE: KEEN STARS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE TABLE D'HOTE by JOHN PAUL BOCOCK AN OLD-WORLD CONVENT GARDEN by ABBIE FARWELL BROWN THE WANDERER: 2. IN FRANCE: AU CAFE *** by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |