Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

The Two Mothers

By Epiphanius Wilson (1845–1916)

FOR fondling arm, warm breast, and life’s sweet tide,

What dost thou to thy mother make return?

Some madcap girl can win thee from her side;

Few tears, at best, hast thou above her urn.

Only to Earth, thy mother, art thou just:

To her thou givest all within thy power,

Thy life, thy breath, thyself,—a pinch of dust,

To star her bosom with a summer flower.

The Atlantic Monthly. 1889.