Motherhood
by Agnes Lee
Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently,
Following the children joyously astir
Under the cedrus and the olive tree,
Pausing to let their laughter float to her-
Each voice an echo of a voice more dear,
She saw a little Christ in every face.
Then came another woman gliding near
To watch the tender life which filled the place.
And Mary sought the woman's hand, and spoke:
"I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed
With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke
Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost.
"I, too, have rocked my Little One.
And He was fair!
Oh, fairer than the fairest sun,
And, like its rays through amber spun,
His sun-bright hair.
Still I can see it shine and shine."
"Even so," the woman said, "was mine."
"His ways were ever darling ways" -
And Mary smiled -
"So soft, so clinging! Glad relays
Of love were all His precious days.
My little Child!
My vanished star! My music fled!"
"Even so was mine," the woman said.
And Mary whispered: "Tell me, thou,
Of thine." And she:
"Oh, mine was rosy as a bough
Blooming with roses, sent, somehow,
To bloom for me!
His balmy fingers left a thrill
Deep in my breast that warms me still."
Then she gazed down some wilder, darker hour,
And said - when Mary questioned, knowing not:
"Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?" -
"I am the mother of Iscariot."