Awhile she lay all passive to the touch <br />Of those small fingers, and the soft, soft lips <br />Soliciting the sweet nutrition thence, <br />While yearning sympathy crept round her heart, <br />She felt her spirit yielding to the charm, <br />That wakes the parent in the fellest bosom, <br />And binds her to her little one for ever, <br />If once completed - but she broke - she broke it. <br /> <br />For she was brooding o'er her sex's wrongs, <br />And seem'd to lie among a nest of scorpions, <br />That stung remorse to frenzy: - forth she sprung, <br />And with collected might a moment stood, <br />Mercy and misery struggling in her thoughts, <br />Yet both impelling her to one dire purpose. <br />There was a little grave already made, <br />But two spans long, in the turf floor beside her, <br />By him who was the father of that child; <br />Thence he had sallied when the work was done, <br />To hunt, to fish, to ramble on the hills, <br />Till all was peace again within that dwelling, <br />His haunt, - his den, - his anything but home! <br />Peace? no - till the new-comer was despatch'd. <br />Whence it should ne'er return, to break the stupor <br />Of unawaken'd conscience in himself. <br /> <br />She pluck'd the baby from her flowing breast, <br />And o'er its mouth, yet moist with nature's beverage, <br />Bound a white lotus-leaf to still its cries; <br />Then laid it down in that untimely grave, <br />As tenderly as though 'twere rock'd to sleep <br />With songs of love, and afraid to wake it; <br />Soon as she felt it touch the ground she started, <br />Hurried the damp earth over it; then fell <br />Flat on the heaving heap, and crush'd it down <br />With the whole burden of her grief, exclaiming, <br />'Oh, that my mother had done so to me!' <br />Then in a swoon forgot, a little while, <br />Her child, her sex, her tyrant, and herself.<br /><br />James Montgomery<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-indian-mother-about-to-destroy-her-child/
