An Old Doll

Low on her little stool she sits To make a nursing lap, And cares for nothing but the form Her little arms enwrap. With hairless skull that gapes apart, A broken plaster ball, One chipped glass eye that squints askew, And ne'er a nose at all - No raddle left on grimy cheek, No mouth that one can see - It scarce discloses, at a glance, What it was meant to be. But something in the simple scheme As it extends below (It is the 'tidy' from my chair That she is rumpling so) - A certain folding of the stuff That winds the thing about (But still permits the sawdust gore To trickle down and out) - The way it curves around her waist, On little knees outspread - Implies a body frail and dear, Whence one infers a head. She rocks the scarecrow to and fro, With croonings soft and deep, A lullaby designed to hush The bunch of rags to sleep. I ask what rubbish has she there. 'My dolly,' she replies, But tone and smile and gesture say, 'My angel from the skies.' Inefflable the look of love Cast on the hideous blur That somehow means a precious face, Most beautiful, to her. The deftness and the tenderness Of her caressing hands . . . . . . How can she possibly divine For what the creature stands? Herself a nurseling, that has seen The summers and the snows Of scarce five years of baby life. And yet she knows - she knows. Just as a puppy of the pack Knows unheard huntsman's call, And knows it is a running hound Before it learns to crawl. Just as she knew, when hardly born, The breast unseen before, And knew - how well! - before they touched, What milk and mouth were for. So! by some mystic extra-sense Denied to eyes and ears, Her spirit communes with its own Beyond the veil of years. She hears unechoing footsteps run On floors she never trod, Sees lineaments invisible As is the face of God - Forms she can recognise and greet, Though wholly hid from me. Alas! a treasure that is not, And that may never be. The majesty of motherhood Sits on her baby brow; Before her little three-legged throne My grizzled head must bow. That dingy bundle in her arms Symbols immortal things - A heritage, by right divine, Beyond the claims of kings.