HASTY WORDS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1187, 28 October 1882, Page 8 (Supplement)

HASTY WORDS.

The mother’s feet were weary grown— From morn till sultry noon, No moment she had found for rest, ftjFor dinner-time came soon. And many tasks for busy hands The harvest-season brought— So, in the kitchen’s heated air Unceasingly she wrought. Outside, with merry quip and joke, The reapers bent in toil, For many hands made gayer work, And lightened its turmoil. She heard her children’s blithesome tones, As, busied with their play, They call to her to note their sports, Or praise the lovely day. One little girl, with sweet blue eyes, Oft came up to her there, To offer help, and with her hands Her mother’s tasks to share. But, children’s help will often prove A bother, at the best; It was so now. The mother’s nerves, By many cares oppressed, Conquered at last ; with hasty push She shoved the child aside—- “ I wish I had no girl,” she said—(Think ! She was sorely tried.) But, as those blue eyes filled with tears, The lips quivered with pain, She stopped her work and clasped her child With tears like falling rain. Ah me*! Now autumn’s leaves are strewn Around the old door-stone : Within her home the mother’s hands Perform her tasks alone. For the little Blue Eyes is at rest, And she must grieve in vain; , Remorse cannot unsay those words, Orbring her-child again. —M. L.