Page 14 - Poetry-Family

My movements all were rather hurried,
When taking up my watch to see
It fell and broke and stopped at three.
“All know calamities,” I thought,
And once again my poem sought,
To which my muse in pity lent
The aid for which she had been sent,
And told me off the words so fast,
I thought all interruptions past.
When chancing to look up, I saw
My baby playing with a straw,
Which accident forced in his eye,
And made him piteously to cry.
One hour’s rocking on my breast
Brought to my darling quiet rest;
With soothing poultice on it kept,
His sister fanned him while he slept.
“Now come, dear muse, we’ll try again
To trace some beauties with this pen.”
But fate said, “Yet you cannot go,
Another child is crying so;
Go to him now and stop the noise,
They may be fighting over toys.”
I called, “Do children stop that row,
And tell me what’s the matter now?”
While going out into the yard,
Where yet the child was crying hard,
Until he saw me, when he said,
“Mamma, your tild is most done dead;
Me tried to tut you up so wood,
But papa hatchet, it ain’t dood,
It tut my foot an made it beede,
De mosest boad I ever seed.”
“O Lord have mercy on me! Do!
My darling’s foot is cut in two;
Run for the doctor! get some lint!”
I said, “and hand the peppermint!—
No; sticking-plaster’s what I meant.
Is some one for the doctor sent?
Ah! there he goes now riding by;
Do come in quick, sir! ere he die!”

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