Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LETTER SHE DID NOT WRITE, by MARGARET ELIZABETH MUNSON SANGSTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LETTER SHE DID NOT WRITE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It was never set down in black and white
Last Line: Had come to the letter she could not write?
Alternate Author Name(s): Van Deth, Gerrit, Mrs.
Subject(s): Babies; Love; Mothers; Infants


IT was never set down in black and white,
The loving letter she did not write;
She thought it out as she baked the bread,
As she mended the stockings and made the bed;
She wove its beautiful sentences through
The morning's work that was hers to do;
But it never was written with ink and pen,
For the boys came home from school, and then
She hadn't a chance in black on white
To scribble the letter she did not write.

It never was dropped in the corner box
Which the faithful postman's key unlocks;
It never was even begun, you see,
Though it throbbed with a true heart's constancy;
The far-away mother, the friend beloved,
The kinsman dear, whom it must have moved,

Were touching her hand with tender clasp,
Were holding her heart in insistent grasp,
But it never was sent on its blessed flight,
The dream of a letter she did not write.

She gave up trying the thing at last,
When the busy day was almost past,
Filled with the measure from sun to sun
Of the woman's work which is never done;
The duties sacred which yet seem slight,
The little wrongs which must be set right.
She had found her paper and taken her seat,
When the baby wakened; "Hush, my sweet!"
And Freddie brought her a puzzling sum,
And Teddy deafened her with his drum;
No wonder it faded quite out of sight.
The dear home letter she meant to write.

But yet, ah, yet were the waves of air
Not stirred by her tender, wordless prayer?
And did not her loving heart, full fain,
Send out its cry to her own, and pain
Of longing bring in a subtle way
A pleasure deep in the waning day,
When somehow she felt that an answer bright
Had come to the letter she could not write?





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