"The Mother Prays"

The Mother Prays

Oh, Mary, Mary, Mother Mary,
        The night is dark and long,
The rain beats drearily on the roof,
        The wind is wild and strong;
To-night I pray only to thee—
        Tell me, if this be wrong.

Oh, tender, pitying Virgin Mary,
        Thou has the mother-heart;
Thou knowest how tears wrought of blood
        Up from my torn breast start
At the mere thought that Death should seek

        To bear this child apart.

Oh, Mary, Mary, Mother Mary,
        The hours are long and slow;
Help me to bear them as I kneel
        Where she lies still and low,
The only little child I have—
        I cannot let her go!

Oh, gentle, patient Virgin Mary,
        To thy kind heart I plead

For her, so little and so sweet!

        Thou know’st the mother-need—

Tell God; and for this one dear life
        (For Christ’s sake) intercede!

Mother, —the prayer dies on my lips
        Shaken with agony;
Thou of the tortured mother-heart, —
        I leave it all with thee!
Plead thou with God this awful night
        To spare this child to me.

"The Mother Prays" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).