| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | X. The Pity of It
The Hebrew Mother | | By Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835) |
| | | ALAS! my boy, thy gentle grasp is on me; | |
| The bright tears quiver in thy pleading eyes; | |
| And now fond thoughts arise, | |
| And silver cords again to earth have won me; | |
| And like a vine thou claspest my full heart— | 5 |
| How shall I hence depart? | |
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| How the lone paths retrace where thou wert playing | |
| So late, along the mountains, at my side? | |
| And I, in joyous pride, | |
| By every place of flowers my course delaying, | 10 |
| Wove, e’en as pearls, the lilies round thy hair, | |
| Beholding thee so fair! | |
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| And, oh! the home whence thy bright smile hath parted, | |
| Will it not seem as if the sunny day | |
| Turn’d from its door away? | 15 |
| While through its chambers wandering, weary-hearted, | |
| I languish for thy voice, which past me still | |
| Went like a singing rill? | |
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| Under the palm-trees thou no more shalt meet me, | |
| When from the fount at evening I return, | 20 |
| With the full water-urn; | |
| Nor will thy sleep’s low dove-like breathings greet me, | |
| As ’midst the silence of the stars I wake, | |
| And watch for thy dear sake. | |
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| And thou, will slumber’s dewy cloud fall round thee, | 25 |
| Without thy mother’s hand to smooth thy bed? | |
| Wilt thou not vainly spread | |
| Thine arms, when darkness as a veil hath wound thee, | |
| To fold my neck, and lift up, in thy fear, | |
| A cry which none shall hear? | 30 | | | |
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