We understand a lot of things we never did before, <br />And it seems that to each other Ma and I are meaning more. <br />I don't know how to say it, but since little Jessie died <br />We have learned that to be happy we must travel side by side. <br />You can share your joys and pleasures, but you never come to know <br />The depth there is in loving, till you've got a common woe. <br /> <br />We're past the hurt of fretting—we can talk about it now: <br />She slipped away so gently and the fever left her brow <br />So softly that we didn't know we'd lost her, but, instead, <br />We thought her only sleeping as we watched beside her bed. <br />Then the doctor, I remember, raised his head, as if to say <br />What his eyes had told already, and Ma fainted dead away. <br /> <br />Up to then I thought that money was the thing I ought to get; <br />And I fancied, once I had it, I should never have to fret. <br />But I saw that I had wasted precious hours in seeking wealth; <br />I had made a tidy fortune, but I couldn't buy her health. <br />And I saw this truth much clearer than I'd ever seen before: <br />That the rich man and the poor man have to let death through the door. <br /> <br />We're not half so keen for money as one time we used to be; <br />I am thinking more of mother and she's thinking more of me. <br />Now we spend more time together, and I know we're meaning more <br />To each other on life's journey, than we ever meant before. <br />It was hard to understand it! Oh, the dreary nights we've cried! <br />But we've found the depth of loving, since the day that Jessie died.<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/since-jessie-died/
