Poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

* * *

GOD gave to me a child in part,
Yet wholly gave the father's heart:
Child of my soul, O whither now,
Unborn, unmothered, goest thou?

You came, you went, and no man wist;
Hapless, my child, no breast you kist;
On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb,
Nor knew the kindly feel of home.

My voice may reach you, O my dear-
A father's voice perhaps the child may hear;
And, pitying, you may turn your view
On that poor father whom you never knew.

Alas! alone he sits, who then,
Immortal among mortal men,
Sat hand in hand with love, and all day through
With your dear mother wondered over you. 

1. Songs of Travel and Other Verses. 13. Mater Triumphans
2. About the Sheltered Garden Ground
3. An English Breeze
4. To Sydney
5. Sonet VI. As in the Hostel by the Bridge I Sate

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