Two on a Doorstep
T
HERE on the doorstep at Nazareth,
Mary sat with her small young son.
“What did you do the long day through?
What did you do, my little one?”
And he, looking up with his earnest eyes,
Answered her: “Mother, my playmate fell
On a jagged rock, and quickly I ran
To bathe his wounds at the wayside well.
And Mother, a beggar on crippled feet
Came pleading for aid—he was long unfed,
I helped him over the cobbled street,
And I gave him half of my luncheon bread.
0 Mother, so often, it seems to me,
That the whole world calls me, and I must go . . .
But Mother, why have your eyes grown sad,
And why are you weeping so?”
“Dear little son, I cannot say,
But the world is so great, and so far away.”
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