Song - The Dolly's Mother
By James Whitcomb Riley
[W.W.]
A little maid, of summers four -
Did you compute her years, -
And yet how infinitely more
To me her age appears:
I mark the sweet child's serious air,
At her unplayful play, -
The tiny doll she mothers there
And lulls to sleep away,
Grows - 'neath the grave similitude -
An infant real, to me,
And she a saint of motherhood
In hale maturity.
So, pausing in my lonely round,
And all unseen of her,
I stand uncovered - her profound
And abject worshipper.