The Mother [poem by Louis Esson]

[Editor: This poem by Louis Esson was published in Bells and Bees: Verses (1910).]

The Mother

The late Spring blooms. The teeming earth
Yields fruits and flowers on hill and plain.
Along the myrtle track I wait
To watch the drovers pass again.
Love, once he said, made all things grow
As innocent as sun and rain.

The season’s ripe. And rain and sun
Like wedded wife and husband came.
The fruit hangs heavy on the tree,
And rich increase the creatures claim.
But baby, baby, at my breast
Your birth alone brings sin and shame.

Source:
Louis Esson, Bells and Bees: Verses, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1910, [page 14]

Editor’s notes:
myrtle = plants of the family Myrtaceae; including various native Australian plants such as eucalyptus, paperbark, and bottlebrush trees