Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Mother’s Loss

If I could clasp my little babe
Upon my breast to-night, 
I would not mind the blowing wind
That shrieketh in affright.
Oh, my lost babe! my little babe, 
My babe with dreamful eyes; 
Thy bed is cold; and night wind bold
Shrieks woeful lullabies.

My breast is softer than the sod; 
This room, with lighter hearth, 
Is better place for thy sweet face
Than frozen mother eatrth.
Oh, my babe! oh, my lost babe! 
Oh, babe with waxen hands, 
I want thee so, I need thee so -
Come from thy mystic lands! 

No love that, like a mother’s fills
Each corner of the heart; 
No loss like hers, that rends, and chills, 
And tears the soul apart.
Oh, babe - my babe, my helpless babe! 
I miss thy little form.
Would I might creep where thou dost sleep, 
And clasp thee through the storm.

I hold thy pillow to my breast, 
To bring a vague relief; 
I sing the songs that soothed thy rest -
Ah me! no cheating grief.
My breathing babe! my sobbing babe! 
I miss thy plaintive moan, 
I cannot hear - thou art not near -
My little one, my own.

Thy father sleeps. He mourns thy loss, 
But little fathers know
The pain that makes a mother toss
Through sleepless nights of woe.
My clinging babe! my nursing babe! 
What knows thy father - man -
How my breasts miss thy lips’ soft kiss -
None but a mother can.

1. The Birth of the Orchid
2. The Call (All wantonly in hours of joy)
3. Be Not Attached
4. Behold the Earth
5. The Black Charger

Print

1285 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version