Maternal Love
Bk. II. vv. 342-380
Admire how Nature, with her jealous care
For purity in kind, still schemes to pair
Mother and child by features that forbid
Confusion in the common home all share.
Members of a kind insomuch agree;
Yet each is itself; whence diversity.
Mutual recognition rests on that;
Family ties without it could not be.
No human convention; dumb cattle can
Be sure where love is due, no less than Man.
An universal instinct—and, for guide,
A sense of differences—Nature’s plan.
A calf may its innocent life resign
On the altar before some stately shrine,
Shedding a flood of warm blood ’mid the steam
Of incense, and libations of red wine.
And the Mother! in many a green glade
She tracks the lost by prints his feet have made.
Each spot she studies, in the fond belief
The faith of love can never be gainsaid.
Then, from the woods that her moans overflow,
An impulse drives her to renew her woe
At the stall, where a passionate regret,
Piercing her heart, tosses her to and fro.
Not willow saplings, dewy grass, nor sight
Of brimming rivers, with, in warm noon light,
Cool pools to stand in, banish pain and ache,
Much less, yield an interval of delight.
A calf at play impose on her belief!
Be accepted as hers, and bring relief!
Numberless signs attest it not her own;
Both like and unlike aggravate her grief.
’Tis given not to flocks alone and herds
To mark diversities, but wild beasts, birds,
Joying in lonely groves, and streams, and lakes,
Even fish that understand without words,
As they swim the deep, paint in shells the shore,—
Nay, grains of corn themselves, an endless store,
Remain distinguishable, one and all;
Are known apart by learnéd in such lore.
Art works after one pattern, and by rule;
Nature as the mood inspires, not a school.
She is certain in idea; diverse
In embodiment; never same and dull.