Poems (Cook)/To My Readers

by Eliza Cook

 

TO MY READERS.

NEW LINES ON AN OLD SUBJECT

Long years ago, ere an earnest woe Had lessened a dimple, or dimm'd a glance;I sat with a book in the chimney nook, Sighing o'er Infancy's sweet Romance,

I loved to look in that hard-worn book, For it always left me in mournful mood;And my cheeks turned pale o'er the well-known tale, So simple and sad, of "The Babes in the Wood."

With rage and grief I read each leaf, Though knowing by rote what each leaf would discover,Longing to twine a good strong line, And hang the uncle three times over.

Oh! uncles then seemed terrible men, And lucky it was I had none of my own;For I saw them at night in visions of fright, With daggers, and poison, and hearts of stone.

Each page I read bowed down my head, With a darker brow, and a heavier sigh,Till of hope bereft, the Babes were left, Weeping and hungry, to starve and die.

But the end was best, for my eye could rest On a "picture" my bosom could not withstand;And my tears gushed out and dropped about, Blurring the work of the limner’s hand.

That "picture" gave the "unmade grave" In the desolate wood—I can see it now—With an extra gloom on the foreground bloom, And a midnight shadow on every bough,

Side by side, as they lay and died, It showed me the little ones, cold and still;With the redbreasts winging their way and bringing A monstrous leaf in each tiny bill.

'Twas crade and rough, but oh, 'twas enough To fetter the freedom of Childhood's breath;That bit of Ideal made fearfully real The story of cruelty, murder, and death.

'Twas the "picture" I felt mace my young heart melt Into the direst sorrow of all;As my love was stirred for each dear, little bird, Wrapping the Babes in an emerald pall.

'Twas the "picture" that caught my most pitying thought; 'Twas the "picture" that told of a sad, true thing;'Twas the "picture" that shone with a charm of its own Like the gem that enriches a Memory ring.

Oh! may kind ones look into this fair book, And deem its "pictures" as precious and good,As I, when believing, and weeping, and grieving, Did that of "The Babes in the Blackberry Wood."

ELIZA COOK.