OVER the happy mother’s bed | |
| Gambol three children, loving as gay; | |
| Ernest, strong, and delicate Fritz, | |
| Pretty baby Victoria. | |
| Two little princes, sans sword, sans crown, | 5 |
| One little princess, infant-sweet, | |
| In the mother’s breast, as rich, as full | |
| As any mother’s in lane or street, | |
| They grew, three roses, love-rooted deep— | |
| Filling with perfume all their own, | 10 |
| The palace air—oft sharp and keen, | |
| In the lonely heights too near a throne. | |
| |
| The palace windows stand open wide, | |
| The harmless windows, and through them pass | |
| May winds, to the palace-children dear, | 15 |
| As to cottage children upon the grass; | |
| Out through the door bold Ernest runs, | |
| The mother follows with anxious mind, | |
| Fearless of fate, for a minute’s space | |
| Leaving the other two behind. | 20 |
| |
| Grand on the bed,—a mimic queen, | |
| Tiny Victoria gravely sits; | |
| While grasping closely his darling toy, | |
| Up to the window climbs merry Fritz; | |
| It drops—his treasure! He leans and looks, | 25 |
| Twenty feet down to the stony road— | |
| Hear ye that shriek from the mother’s lips? | |
| Hast thou no mercy, O God, O God? | |
| One ghastly moment he hangs in air | |
| Like a fledgling bird from the warm nest thrown, | 30 |
| With innocent eyes of mere surprise— | |
| Then falls—and the bright young life is done. | |
| |
| Mother, poor mother, try to see | |
| Not the skeleton hand that thrust him there | |
| Out of sunshiny life into silent death, | 35 |
| But the waiting angels in phalanx fair. | |
| O try to think that the earth’s hard breast | |
| Was the bosom of God, which took him in, | |
| Safe from the clutch of the years unknown | |
| Full of sorrow, sickness, peril or sin: | 40 |
| O hear far off the low sound of tears | |
| Dropping from many an eye like mine, | |
| As we look on our living children sweet, | |
| And our English mother-hearts bleed for thine. | |
| |
| God comfort thee! Under the robe of state | 45 |
| That hides but heals not wounds throbbing wild, | |
| May’st thou feel the touch of one soft dead hand | |
| The child, that will always remain a child. | |
| And when long years shall have slipped away | |
| When gray hairs come and thy pulse beats slow, | 50 |
| May one little face shine star-like out | |
| O’er the dim descent that all feet must go | |
| Mother, poor mother! ’neath warm June rain | |
| Bear to the grave this coffin small; | |
| Oft, our children living are children lost, | 55 |
| But our children dead—yes we keep them all. | |
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