This poem was written two days after her last child, Mollie, was married, leaving the household without children for the first time. This was also less than two months before her husband of 39 years died.
Untitled Poem
by Elizabeth Mary Hester Parsons Hayman
As I
passed through the woods in Springtime
I passed
by a Mother bird’s nest
And she
looked so peaceful and happy
With her brood tucked under her breast.
She cast
her gentle eye upward
To see if her birdlings I’d harm.
By leaving
I quietly assured her
I would do
her babies no harm.
As I
passed by each day I noted
The care
she took of her young
While the
helpful mate with a love’s instinct
Around the
nest as a guard still hung.
One day
while softly passing
I heard
the Mother Bird’s cry
And looked to find out the trouble.
The birds
were merely trying to fly.
I watched
and waited and listened
As she
tried to teach them to fly
And
shrilly she warned them of the danger
When she
saw that it was nigh.
Again I
passed by the home-nest
And all
was quiet and lone.
The nest
still swung on the green bough
But the
swell of the little birdies was gone.
Gone from
that soft nest forever
To make
their nest of their own
And the
Mother Bird cared not for the home-nest
Since all
of her birdlings had flown.
Since then
my birdlings I have gathered
Around my own home nest.
In
sickness and health I have watched them
And held them close to my breast.
I have
guided their first tottering footsteps,
As fearful
they would stumble along.
By
patience, love, and encouragement
Taught
them to walk and be strong.
But the
years have flown all too swiftly
They to
men and women have grown,
And we who
taught them their first steps
Sit now in
the old home, alone.
And
tonight, how lonely the home seems
Since all
my birdlings have flown.
The last
one who left me this morning
Has chosen a mate of her own.
But we
have had our morning
Our noon
and our evening tide
And soon
the day will be dawning
For us on the other side.
On the
other side of death’s portals
We shall
be forever at rest
And there
we hope to gather
Our children again to our breast.
-- Mary Hester Hayman
September 11, 1908