p. 12 | HARSH WORDS by Verbena Hawthorn

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 8, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 36.

HARSH WORDS.

By Verbena Hawthorn

I HARSHLY spoke to my child one day, And he independently turned away, As if he cared naught for the worst I might say. I thought him hard indeed. When the night shades fell and his prayer was said, I tucked him up in his little bed, With a good-night kiss, and a pat on his head, And “pleasant dreams” decreed.

But just as the midnight spread her wings O’er this land of dead and living things, I heard a sound—e’en yet it stings— That from my boy’s room crept. In those “pleasant dreams” did he declare, “You’re cross, mama, as a cross, cross bear For me I know you do not care.” O, bitterly he wept!

The pangs that pierced my heart just then Have never been writ by tongue or pen; But I felt as the robin must feel when She finds in her cozy nest The mangled form of her downy child, The victim of some ruffian wild. O, could I make those harsh words mild, And ease that heaving breast!

But words can never be unsaid When from the lips they once have sped; How oft like a smouldering fire they spread, And ruin as they run! The child awoke. I confessed my sin; I healed, as it were, the broken wing. Yet ’twas never as strong as it would have been Had the wounding not been done.

VERBENA HAWTHORN.