MOTHERHOOD.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 23, 27 January 1873, Page 4

MOTHERHOOD.

o (From Caherley's " Fly Leaves?') She laid it where the sunbeams' fall Unscanned upon the broken wall. Without a tear, without a groan, She bid it near a mighty stone, Whirh some rude swain had haply cast Thither in spore, long acres past. And Time with mosses had o'erlaid, And, fenced with many a tall grass blade, And all about bid roses bloom, And violets shed their soft perfume; There, in its cool and quiet bed. She sat her burden down and fled, 3STor flung, all eager to escape, One glance upon the perfect shape That lay, still warm and fresh and fair, But motionless and soulless there. No human eye had marked ber pass Across the linden-shadowed grass Ere yet the" minster clock chimed seven ; Only the innocent birds of heaven — The magpie, and the rook whose nest Swings as the elm-tree waved his crest — And the lithe cricket, and the hoar And huge-limbed hound that guards the door, Looked on when, asa summer wind That, passing, leaves no trace behind, All unapparaled, barefoot all, She ran to that old ruined wall, To leave upon the chill dank earth (For ah ! she never knew its worth) 'Mid hemlock rank, and fern and .ling, And dews of night, that precious thing ! And there it might haye lain forlorn From morn till eve, from eve till morn j But that, by some wild impulse led, The mother, ere she turned and fled, One moment stood erect and high; Then poured into the silent sky A cry so jubilant', so strange, That Alice- as she strove to range Her rebel ringlets at her glass — Sprang up and gazed across the grass; Shook back those curls so fair to see, Clapped her soft hands in childish glee, And shrieked — h>r sweet face all aglow, Her very limbs with rapture shaking — " My hen has. laid an egg, I know; And only hear the noise she's making ! "