An Old Doll

Low on her little stool she sits

To make a nursing lap,

And cares for nothing but the form

Her little arms enwrap.

With hairless skull that gapes apart,

A broken plaster ball,

One chipped glass eye that squints askew,

And ne’er a nose at all-

No raddle left on grimy cheek,

No mouth that one can see-

It scarce discloses, at a glance,

What it was meant to be.

But something in the simple scheme

As it extends below

(It is the “tidy” from my chair

That she is rumpling so)-

A certain folding of the stuff

That winds the thing about

(But still permits the sawdust gore

To trickle down and out)-

The way it curves around her waist,

On little knees outspread-

Implies a body frail and dear,

Whence one infers a head.

She rocks the scarecrow to and fro,

With croonings soft and deep,

A lullaby designed to hush

The bunch of rags to sleep.

I ask what rubbish has she there.

“My dolly,” she replies,

But tone and smile and gesture say,

“My angel from the skies.”

Ineffable the look of love

Cast on the hideous blur

That somehow means a precious face,

Most beautiful, to her.

The deftness and the tenderness

Of her caressing hands . . . . . .

How can she possibly divine

For what the creature stands?

Herself a nurseling, that has seen

The summers and the snows

Of scarce five years of baby life.

And yet she knows-she knows.

Just as a puppy of the pack

Knows unheard huntsman’s call,

And knows it is a running hound

Before it learns to crawl.

Just as she knew, when hardly born,

The breast unseen before,

And knew-how well!-before they touched,

What milk and mouth were for.

So, by some mystic extra-sense

Denied to eyes and ears,

Her spirit communes with its own

Beyond the veil of years.

She hears unechoing footsteps run

On floors she never trod,

Sees lineaments invisible

As is the face of God-

Forms she can recognise and greet,

Though wholly hid from me.

Alas! a treasure that is not,

And that may never be.

The majesty of motherhood

Sits on her baby brow;

Before her little three-legged throne

My grizzled head must bow.

That dingy bundle in her arms

Symbols immortal things-

A heritage, by right divine,

Beyond the claims of kings.

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Poems in English 

• Autumn – The Third Pastoral, or Hylas and Ægon poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• To the Author of a Poem Entitled Succession poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• Argus poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• An Essay on Man in Four Epistles: Epistle 1 poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• An Essay On Criticism poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• An Essay on Man: Epistle II poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• Yours & Mine poem – Alice Fulton poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• Wibble Wobble poem – Alexander E Musset poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• Why? by Poetry In English
• Where Are You? by Poetry In English
• Terrible Ted poem – Alexander E. Musset poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• Tell Me by Poetry In English
• Teacher by Poetry In English
• Sleep by Poetry In English
• Roar Shack poem – Alice Fulton poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English
• Alexander E. Musset by Poetry In English
• Our Soul’s Gestation by Poetry In English
• Intruder by Poetry In English
• Inside/Outside The Window by Poetry In English
• Industrial Lace poem – Alice Fulton poems | Poetry Monster by Poetry In English

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