A Mother’s Answer [poem by Louisa Lawson]

[Editor: This poem by Louisa Lawson was published in “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems (1905).]

A Mother’s Answer.

You ask me, dear child, why thus sadly I weep
For baby the angels have taken to keep;
Altho’ she is safe, and for ever at rest,
A yearning to see her will rise in my breast.

I pray and endeavour to quell it in vain,
But stronger it comes and yet stronger again,
Till all the bright thoughts of her happier lot
Are lost in this one — my baby is not.

And while I thus yearn so intensely to see
This child that the angels are keeping for me,
I doubt for the time where her spirit has flown —
If the love e’en of angels can fully atone
For the loss of a mother’s, mysterious and deep.
I own that thought sinful, yet owning it — weep.

Source:
Louisa Lawson, “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems, Sydney: Dawn Office, [1905], p. 86

Editor’s notes:
This poem is apparently about the death of a baby.

See a related poem by Louisa Lawson: A Child’s Question.

altho’ = (vernacular) although

e’en = (archaic) a contraction of “even”

own = confess; admit or affirm that something is true