His childish thoughts outsoared thy reach;
His godlike tenderness
Would sometimes seem, in human speech,
To thee than human less.
Strange pangs await thee, mother mild,
A sorer travail-pain;
Then will the spirit of thy child
Be born in thee again.
Till then thou wilt forebode and dread;
Loss will be still thy fear—
Till he be gone, and, in his stead,
His very self appear.
For, when thy son hath reached his goal,
And vanished from the earth,
Soon wilt thou find him in thy soul,
A second, holier birth.
II.
Ah, there he stands! With wondering face
Old men surround the boy;
The solemn looks, the awful place
Bestill the mother's joy.
In sweet reproach her gladness hid,
Her trembling voice says—low,
Less like the chiding than the chid—
"How couldst thou leave us so?"
But will her dear heart understand
The answer that he gives—
Childlike, eternal, simple, grand,
The law by which he lives?
"Why sought ye me?" Ah, mother dear,
The gulf already opes
That will in thee keep live the fear,
And part thee from thy hopes!
"My father's business—that ye know
I cannot choose but do."
Mother, if he that work forego,
Not long he cares for you.