Bohemian legends and other poems/The Story of a New Mother
THE STORY OF A NEW MOTHER.
His mother died when he was but a child;
His saintly mother, with her features mild,
Was laid away in the cold churchyard soil,
Ere yet his little hands had learned to toil,
And soon his father took another wife,
A buxom maiden, who was fond of strife,
And bore illwill to the poor little lad,
Whose childish life she made most drear and sad.
One day his childish heart was full to break,
And childishly he asked, “When will she wake?
Oh, tell me, father, will she ever wake—
My own loved mother? Wake up, for my sake?”
Alas! my son, she sleepeth in the grave,
Beside the churchyard gate, where grasses wave.
Oh, they sleep well who sleep within the soil—
Go play in peace, my son, she knows no toil.”
With toddling feet he to the churchyard went,
And sitting on her grave, his strength outspent,
Began to think how he should wake her sleep,
Who slept in the cold earth so well and deep.
With a large pin he loosed the graveyard soil,
And was so eager in his loving toil
He was not startled when he heard her voice,
Calling to him, “My child, my love, my choice,
I cannot come to thee, for on my heart
Lies a great stone, from which I cannot part.
But tell me, my beloved, why art thou here?”
And then the little child, without a fear,
Said to his mother, “When she gives me bread,
She always says she wishes I were dead.
You also gave me bread, oh, mother mine,
And buttered it, for surely I was thine.
When she combs my hair, see my tears full fast,
For she pulls it till the blood comes at last;
When you combed my curls, oft you kissed my hair,
And you loved to hear me called good and fair;
When she washes me with her rough, hard hand,
See, she sometimes scrubs me, yea, e’en with sand;
When you washed me, oh, never did I cry.
Oh, how can you sleep, and leave me to cry?”
Then his mother’s voice said low, “So, my son,
I will come for thee at the rising sun.”
Then the little child, with a happy smile,
Said to his father, “In a little while
You can dig my grave by my mother’s side;
By this time to-morrow I shall have died;
For she told me true, at the rising sun
I will come and take thee, my darling son.”
When the morning came, dead upon his bed
Lay the little child, but his soul had fled
To those realms on high, where his mother stood—
No need of speaking, all was understood.
On the third sad day, by his mother’s side
They laid him gently, who so oft had sighed,
And his father, gazing upward at the sky,
Said, “Oh, would to God, that I too could die.”