A WOMAN walking the street adown Saw at a casement, glint the gown Of a mother, meek, whose little son Had died with his child-joys just begun, And it smote her heart, for well she knew What Mother-love with a life may do; And she said, "Poor soul! how sad that she Should lose the child in his grace and glee!" For she thought of her boy that lived to-day, Though man-grown now and far away. But the woman there in the window-seat Looked with a smile, not sad, but sweet, And touched with pity, to the place Where she had marked the other's face; And she said, "Poor soul! her child is lost, For now he is only a man sin-tossed! But the boy I watched in his bright young day, He bides in my heart a child for aye." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH HYMN TO SCIENCE by MARK AKENSIDE MYRTILLA by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH IN THE FOREST by ELINOR PETERSON ALLEN MARIAN; AN OPERETTA: SONG (2) by FRANCES (MOORE) BROOKE LIFE IN A LOVE by ROBERT BROWNING THE LOST CHRIST by THOMAS CURTIS CLARK MARI MAGNO; OR TALES ON BOARD: MY TALE by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH |