Classic Poem

It was night and the tired villagers were wrapped in sleep;
Only within her lonely hut did a mother her vigil keep.
All day she had toiled and labored, carrying bricks and stone,
While her child lay sick with fever, and uttered his weary moan.
Oft she had paused in her work, and in soft, caressing tone
Had soothed his plaintive crying, then gone back to her work alone,
And now, though tired and weary, and heavy her eyes with sleep,
She sat and nursed her baby with a mother love true and deep;
And when with a last little cry he turned in her arms and was still,
She knew that no more would his baby love the place in her
hard life fill.
She was only a coolie mother, but her heart was heavy with pain,
For she knew that she never would clasp her child in her
lonely arms again.
What had mattered the daily toil in the heat of the burning sun,
When she knew that she had her little one to caress when
the day was done?
To you he was only a coolie child with his baby limbs dimpled and bare,
But now he is one of those favored ones who are safe in
their Saviour's care.

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