He plays with her and will not sleep.
For other playfellows she sighs;
An unmaternal fondness keep
Her alien eyes.
THE ROARING FROST
A flock of winds came winging from the North,
Strong birds with fighting pinions driving forth
With a resounding call!
Where will they close their wings and cease their cries -
Between what warming seas and conquering skies -
And fold, and fall?
PARENTAGE
"When Augustus Caesar legislated against the unmarried citizens of
Rome, he declared them to be, in some sort, slayers of the people."
Ah no, not these!
These, who were childless, are not they who gave
So many dead unto the journeying wave,
The helpless nurslings of the cradling seas;
Not they who doomed by infallible decrees
Unnumbered man to the innumerable grave.
But those who slay
Are fathers. Theirs are armies. Death is theirs,
The death of innocences and despairs;
The dying of the golden and the grey.
The sentence, when these speak it, has no Nay.
And she who slays is she who bears, who bears.
THE MODERN MOTHER
Oh what a kiss
With filial passion overcharged is this!
To this misgiving breast
The child runs, as a child ne'er ran to rest
Upon the light heart and the unoppressed.
Unhoped, unsought!
A little tenderness, this mother thought
The utmost of her meed
She looked for gratitude; content indeed
With thus much that her nine years' love had bought.
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