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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=349954" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Mother and Daughter- Sonnet Sequence</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I<br>Young laughters, and my music! Aye till now <br>The voice can reach no blending minors near; <br>'Tis the bird's trill because the spring is here <br>And spring means trilling on a blossomy bough; <br>'Tis the spring joy that has no why or how, <br>But sees the sun and hopes not nor can fear-- <br>Spring is so sweet and spring seems all the year. <br>Dear voice, the first-come birds but trill as thou.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh music of my heart, be thus for long: <br>Too soon the spring bird learns the later song; <br>Too soon a sadder sweetness slays content <br>Too soon! There comes new light on onward day, <br>There comes new perfume o'er a rosier way: <br>Comes not again the young spring joy that went. <br>ROME, November 1881.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II<br>That she is beautiful is not delight, <br>As some think mothers joy, by pride of her, <br>To witness questing eyes caught prisoner <br>And hear her praised the livelong dancing night; <br>But the glad impulse that makes painters sight <br>Bids me note her and grow the happier; <br>And love that finds me as her worshipper <br>Reveals me each best loveliness aright.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh goddess head! Oh innocent brave eyes! <br>Oh curved and parted lips where smiles are rare <br>And sweetness ever! Oh smooth shadowy hair <br>Gathered around the silence of her brow! <br>Child, I'd needs love thy beauty stranger-wise: <br>And oh the beauty of it, being thou!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III<br>I watch the sweet grave face in timorous thought <br>Lest I should see it dawn to some unrest <br>And read that in her heart is youth's ill guest, <br>The querulous young sadness, born of nought, <br>That wearies of the strife it has not fought, <br>And finds the life it has not had unblest, <br>And asks it knows not what that should be best, <br>And till Love come has never what it sought.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But she is still. A full and crystal lake <br>So gives it skies their passage to its deeps <br>In an unruffled morn where no winds wake, <br>And, strong and fretless, 'stirs not, nor yet sleeps. <br>My darling smiles and 'tis for gladness' sake; <br>She hears a woe, 'tis simple tears she weeps.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV<br>'Tis but a child. The quiet Juno gaze <br>Breaks at a trifle into mirth and glow, <br>Changed as a folded bud bursts into blow, <br>And she springs, buoyant, on some busy craze, <br>Or, in the rhythm of her girlish plays, <br>Like light upon swift waves floats to and fro, <br>And, whatsoe'er's her mirth, needs me to know, <br>And keeps me young by her young innocent ways.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Just now she and her kitten raced and sprang <br>To catch the daisy ball she tossed about; <br>Then they grew grave, and found a shady tree, <br>And kitty tried to see the notes she sang: <br>Now she flies hitherward--'Mother! Quick! Come see! <br>Two hyacinths in my garden almost out!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>V<br>Last night the broad blue lightnings flamed the sky; <br>We watched, our breaths caught as each burst its way, <br>And through its fire out-leaped the sharp white ray, <br>And sudden dark re-closed when it went by: <br>But she, that where we are will needs be nigh, <br>Had tired with hunting orchids half the day. <br>Her father thought she called us; he and I, <br>Half anxious, reached the bedroom where she lay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh lily face upon the whiteness blent! <br>How calm she lay in her unconscious grace! <br>A peal crashed on the silence ere we went; <br>She stirred in sleep, a little changed her place, <br>'Mother,' she breathed, a smile grew on her face: <br>'Mother,' my darling breathed, and slept content.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI<br>Sometimes, as young things will, she vexes me, <br>Wayward, or too unheeding, or too blind. <br>Like aimless birds that, flying on a wind, <br>Strike slant against their own familiar tree; <br>Like venturous children pacing with the sea, <br>That turn but when the breaker spurts behind <br>Outreaching them with spray: she in such kind <br>Is borne against some fault, or does not flee.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And so, may be, I blame her for her wrong, <br>And she will frown and lightly plead her part, <br>And then I bid her go. But 'tis not long: <br>Then comes she lip to ear and heart to heart. <br>And thus forgiven her love seems newly strong, <br>And, oh my penitent, how dear thou art!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII<br>Her father lessons me I at times am hard, <br>Chiding a moment's fault as too grave ill, <br>And let some little blot my vision fill, <br>Scanning her with a narrow near regard. <br>True. Love's unresting gaze is self-debarred <br>From all sweet ignorance, and learns a skill, <br>Not painless, of such signs as hurt love's will, <br>That would not have its prize one tittle marred.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alas! Who rears and loves a dawning rose <br>Starts at a speck upon one petal's rim: <br>Who sees a dusk creep in the shrined pearl's glows, <br>Is ruined at once: 'My jewel growing dim!' <br>I watch one bud that on my bosom blows, <br>I watch one treasured pearl for me and him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII<br>A little child she, half defiant came <br>Reasoning her case--'twas not so long ago-- <br>'I cannot mind your scolding, for I know <br>However bad I were you'd love the same.' <br>And I, what countering answer could I frame? <br>'Twas true, and true, and God's self told her so. <br>One does but ask one's child to smile and grow, <br>And each rebuke has love for its right name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And yet, methinks, sad mothers who for years, <br>Watching the child pass forth that was their boast, <br>Have counted all the footsteps by new fears <br>Till even lost fears seem hopes whereof they're reft <br>And of all mother's good love sole is left-- <br>Is their Love, Love, or some remembered ghost?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX<br>Oh weary hearts! Poor mothers that look back! <br>So outcasts from the vale where they were born <br>Turn on their road and, with a joy forlorn, <br>See the far roofs below their arid track: <br>So in chill buffets while the sea grows black <br>And windy skies, once blue, are tost and torn, <br>We are not yet forgetful of the morn, <br>And praise anew the sunshine that we lack.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, sadder than pale sufferers by a tomb <br>That say 'My dead is happier, and is more' <br>Are they who dare no 'is' but tell what's o'er-- <br>Thus the frank childhood, those the lovable ways-- <br>Stirring the ashes of remembered days <br>For yet some sparks to warm the livelong gloom.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Love's Counterfeit.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Not Love, not Love, that worn and footsore thrall <br>Who, crowned with withered buds and leaves gone dry, <br>Plods in his chains to follow one passed by, <br>Guerdoned with only tears himself lets fall. <br>Love is asleep and smiling in his pall, <br>And this that wears his shape and will not die <br>Was once his comrade shadow, Memory-- <br>His shadow that now stands for him in all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And there are those who, hurrying on past reach, <br>See the dim follower and laugh, content, <br>'Lo, Love pursues me, go where'er I will!' <br>Yet, longer gazing, some may half beseech, <br>'This must be Love that wears his features still: <br>Or else when was the moment that Love went?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Love's Mourner.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis men who say that through all hurt and pain <br>The woman's love, wife's, mother's, still will hold, <br>And breathes the sweeter and will more unfold <br>For winds that tear it, and the sorrowful rain. <br>So in a thousand voices has the strain <br>Of this dear patient madness been retold, <br>That men call woman's love. Ah! they are bold, <br>Naming for love that grief which does remain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Love faints that looks on baseness face to face: <br>Love pardons all; but by the pardonings dies, <br>With a fresh wound of each pierced through the breast. <br>And there stand pityingly in Love's void place <br>Kindness of household wont familiar-wise, <br>And faith to Love--faith to our dead at rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII<br>She has made me wayside posies: here they stand, <br>Bringing fresh memories of where they grew. <br>As new-come travellers from a world we knew <br>Wake every while some image of their land, <br>So these whose buds our woodland breezes fanned <br>Bring to my room the meadow where they blew, <br>The brook-side cliff, the elms where wood-doves coo-- <br>And every flower is dearer for her hand.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh blossoms of the paths she loves to tread, <br>Some grace of her is in all thoughts you bear: <br>For in my memories of your homes that were <br>The old sweet loneliness they kept is fled, <br>And would I think it back I find instead <br>A presence of my darling mingling there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII<br>My darling scarce thinks music sweet save mine: <br>'Tis that she does but love me more than hear. <br>She'll not believe my voice to stranger ear <br>Is merely measure to the note and line; <br>'Not so,' she says; 'Thou hast a secret thine: <br>The others' singing's only rich, or clear, <br>But something in thy tones brings music near; <br>As though thy song could search me and divine.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh voice of mine that in some day not far <br>Time, the strong creditor, will call his debt, <br>Will dull--and even to her--will rasp and mar, <br>Sing Time asleep because of her regret, <br>Be twice thy life the thing her fancies are, <br>Thou echo to the self she knows not yet. <br>CASERTA, April, 1882.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV<br>To love her as to-day is so great bliss <br>I needs must think of morrows almost loth, <br>Morrows wherein the flower's unclosing growth <br>Shall make my darling other than she is. <br>The breathing rose excels the bud I wis, <br>Yet bud that will be rose is sweet for both; <br>And by-and-by seems like some later troth <br>Named in the moment of a lover's kiss.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, I am jealous, as of one now strange <br>That shall instead of her possess my thought, <br>Of her own self made new by any change, <br>Of her to be by ripening morrows brought. <br>My rose of women under later skies! <br>Yet, ah! my child with the child's trustful eyes! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XV<br>That some day Death who has us all for jest <br>Shall hide me in the dark and voiceless mould, <br>And him whose living hand has mine in hold, <br>Where loving comes not nor the looks that rest, <br>Shall make us nought where we are known the best, <br>Forgotten things that leave their track untold <br>As in the August night the sky's dropped gold-- <br>This seems no strangeness, but Death's natural hest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But looking on the dawn that is her face <br>To know she too is Death's seems mis-belief; <br>She should not find decay, but, as the sun <br>Moves mightier from the veil that hides his place, <br>Keep ceaseless radiance. Life is Death begun: <br>But Death and her! That's strangeness passing grief.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVI<br>She will not have it that my day wanes low, <br>Poor of the fire its drooping sun denies, <br>That on my brow the thin lines write good-byes <br>Which soon may be read plain for all to know, <br>Telling that I have done with youth's brave show; <br>Alas! and done with youth in heart and eyes, <br>With wonder and with far expectancies, <br>Save but to say 'I knew such long ago.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She will not have it. Loverlike to me, <br>She with her happy gaze finds all that's best, <br>She sees this fair and that unfretted still, <br>And her own sunshine over all the rest: <br>So she half keeps me as she'd have me be, <br>And I forget to age, through her sweet will.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVII<br>And how could I grow old while she's so young? <br>Methinks her heart sets tune for mine to beat, <br>We are so near; her new thoughts, incomplete, <br>Find their shaped wording happen on my tongue; <br>Like bloom on last year's winterings newly sprung <br>My youth upflowers with hers, and must repeat <br>Old joyaunces in me nigh obsolete. <br>Could I grow older while my child's so young?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And there are tales how youthful blood instilled <br>Thawing frore Age's veins gave life new course, <br>And quavering limbs and eyes made indolent <br>Grew freshly eager with beginning force: <br>She so breathes impulse. Were my years twice spent, <br>Not burdening Age, with her, could make me chilled.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XVIII<br>'Tis hard that the full summer of our round <br>Is but the turn where winter's sign-post's writ; <br>That to have reached the best is leaving it; <br>That final loss bears date from having found. <br>So some proud vessel in a narrow sound <br>Sails at high water with the fair wind fit, <br>And lo! the ebb along the sandy spit, <br>Lower and lower till she jars, aground.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis hard. We are young still but more content; <br>'Tis our ripe flush, the heyday of our prime; <br>We learn full breath, how rich of the air we are! <br>But suddenly we note a touch of time, <br>A little fleck that scarcely seems to mar; <br>And we know then that some time since youth went.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIX<br>Life on the wane: yes, sudden that news breaks. <br>And yet I would 'twere suddenly and less soon; <br>Since no forewarning makes loss opportune. <br>And now I watch that slow advance Time makes: <br>Watch as, while silent flow spreads broad the lakes <br>Mid the land levels of a smooth lagoon, <br>One waiting, pitiful, on a tidal dune, <br>Aware too long before it overtakes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! there's so quick a joy in hues and sun, <br>And will my eyes see dim? Will vacant sense <br>Forget the lark, the surges on the beach? <br>Shall I step wearily and wish 'twere done? <br>Well, if it be love will not too go hence, <br>Love will have new glad secrets yet to teach.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XX<br>There's one I miss. A little questioning maid <br>That held my finger, trotting by my side, <br>And smiled out of her pleased eyes open wide, <br>Wondering and wiser at each word I said. <br>And I must help her frolics if she played, <br>And I must feel her trouble if she cried; <br>My lap was hers past right to be denied; <br>She did my bidding, but I more obeyed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dearer she is to-day, dearer and more; <br>Closer to me, since sister womanhoods meet; <br>Yet, like poor mothers some long while bereft, <br>I dwell on toward ways, quaint memories left, <br>I miss the approaching sound of pit-pat feet, <br>The eager baby voice outside my door.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXI<br>Hardly in any common tender wise, <br>With petting talk, light lips on her dear cheek, <br>The love I mean my child will bear to speak, <br>Loth of its own less image for disguise; <br>But liefer will it floutingly devise, <br>Using a favourite jester's mimic pique, <br>Prompt, idle, by-names with their sense to seek, <br>And takes for language laughing ironies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But she, as when some foreign tongue is heard, <br>Familiar on our lips and closely known, <br>We feel the every purport of each word <br>When ignorant ears reach empty sound alone, <br>So knows the core within each merry gird, <br>So gives back such a meaning in her own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXII<br>The brook leaps riotous with its life just found, <br>That freshets from the mountain rains have fed, <br>Beats at the boulders in its hindered bed, <br>And fills the valley with its triumphing sound. <br>The strong unthirsty tarn sunk in deep ground <br>Has never a sigh wherewith its wealth is said, <br>Has no more ripples than the May-flies tread: <br>Silence of waters is where they abound.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And love, whatever love, sure, makes small boast: <br>'Tis the new lovers tell, in wonder yet. <br>Oh happy need! Enriched stream's jubilant gush! <br>But who being spouses well have learned love's most, <br>Being child and mother learned not nor forget, <br>These in their joyfulness feel the tarn's strong hush.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIII<br>Birds sing 'I love you, love' the whole day through, <br>And not another song can they sing right; <br>But, singing done with, loving's done with quite, <br>The autumn sunders every twittering two. <br>And I'd not have love make too much ado <br>With sweet parades of fondness and delight, <br>Lest iterant wont should make caresses trite, <br>Love-names mere cuckoo ousters of the true.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh heart can hear heart's sense in senseless nought, <br>And heart that's sure of heart has little speech. <br>What shall it tell? The other knows its thought. <br>What shall one doubt or question or beseech <br>Who is assured and knows and, unbesought, <br>Possesses the dear trust that each gives each.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXIV<br>'You scarcely are a mother, at that rate. <br>Only one child!' The blithe soul pitied loud. <br>And doubtless she, amid her household crowd, <br>When one brings care in another's fortunate; <br>When one fares forth another's at her gate. <br>Yea, were her first-born folded in his shroud, <br>Not with a whole despair would she be bowed, <br>She has more sons to make her heart elate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Many to love her singly, mother theirs, <br>To give her the dear love of being their need, <br>To storm her lap by turns and claim their kiss, <br>To kneel around her at their bed-time prayers; <br>Many to grow her comrades! Some have this. <br>Yet I, I do not envy them indeed. <br>RAMSGATE, 1886.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXV<br>You think that you love each as much as one, <br>Mothers with many nestlings 'neath your wings. <br>Nay, but you know not. Love's most priceless things <br>Have unity that cannot be undone. <br>You give the rays, I the englobed full sun; <br>I give the river, you the separate springs: <br>My motherhood's all my child's with all it brings-- <br>None takes the strong entireness from her: none.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">You know not. You love yours with various stress; <br>This with a graver trust, this with more pride; <br>This maybe with more needed tenderness: <br>I by each uttermost passion of my soul <br>Am turned to mine; she is one, she has the whole: <br>How should you know who appraise love and divide?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVI<br>Of my one pearl so much more joy I gain <br>As he that to his sole desire is sworn, <br>Indifferent what women more were born, <br>And if she loved him not all love were vain, <br>Gains more, because of her--yea, through all pain, <br>All love and sorrows, were they two forlorn-- <br>Than whoso happiest in the lands of morn <br>Mingles his heart amid a wifely train.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! Child and mother, darling! Mother and child! <br>And who but we? We, darling, paired alone? <br>Thou hast all thy mother; thou art all my own. <br>That passion of maternity which sweeps <br>Tideless 'neath where the heaven of thee hath smiled <br>Has but one channel, therefore infinite deeps.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XXVII<br>Since first my little one lay on my breast <br>I never needed such a second good, <br>Nor felt a void left in my motherhood <br>She filled not always to the utterest. <br>The summer linnet, by glad yearnings pressed, <br>Builds room enough to house a callow brood: <br>I prayed not for another child--nor could; <br>My solitary bird had my heart's nest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But she is cause that any baby thing <br>If it but smile, is one of mine in truth, <br>And every child becomes my natural joy: <br>And, if my heart gives all youth fostering, <br>Her sister, brother, seems the girl or boy: <br>My darling makes me mother to their youth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Augusta+Davies+Webster">Augusta Davies Webster</a><div class=q>
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Young laughters, and my music! Aye till now 
The voice can reach no blending minors near; 
'Tis the bird's trill because the spring is here 
And spring means trilling on a blossomy bough; 
'Tis the spring joy that has no why or how, 
But sees th..."></div>
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