VI.
Thought I was with my mother. Mother! reader, hast thou a mother? not a mere nominal parent—one who brought thee into the world, and then left thee to struggle in’t—one who gave thee but a moiety of her tenderness? Nay, nay; I do not mean such. But I mean, one whose very life was wrapp’d up in thee, one whose eye moistened with thine, whose voice faltered with thine, whose heart reflected every shadow which passed over thy heart, even as a lake the summer clouds, that idle above its bosom. Such an one I mean—hadst ever such? I had—and how I loved her. Did I not?—the following verses prove it.
MY MOTHER:
(In two Sonnets.)