White lids with silken fringes Two dainty feet are cuddled, All hopes and loves unworthy With a baby on her breast. EUGENE FIELD ON MOTHERHOOD BY IDA COMSTOCK BELOW While his love and thoughtfulness for children was one of his greatest charms, both in his life and writings, he did more to elevate motherhood than any other writer of the present day. The women he admired most were not the devotees of fashion, nor even those of the higher literary attainments, unless they also best loved their own firesides and to rock the cradle. The mother-love is nowhere more beautifully portrayed than in the story of "Félice and Petit Poulain," where an old family horse is seized by the German soldiers while marching upon France, and driven many miles away; after a fierce battle, riderless and blood-stained she gallops over the country back to the little colt she left behind, only to find him dead amid the ruins of the farmyard. I quote from that story this little tribute to our animal friends: 66 There are those who say that none but humankind is immortal · that none but man has a soul. I do not make or believe that claim. There is that within me which tells me that nothing in this world and life of ours which has felt the grace of maternity shall utterly perish, and this I say in all reverence, and with the hope that I offend neither God nor man." MOTHER'S LOVE BY THOMAS BURBIDGE He sang so wildly, did the Boy, If 'twas a madman's voice you heard, Within his heart did dwell: A bird that dallies with his voice Among the matted branches; Or on the free blue air his note To pierce, and fall, and rise, and float, None ever was so sweet as he, The boy that wildly sang to me; Though toilsome was the way and long, He led me not to lose the song. But when again we stood below Grew slacker, and his note more slow, He led me then a little way And then he stayed and bade me stay I could have stayed of mine own will, A little in the doorway sitting, He touch'd her lightly on the cheek. |