To a Little White Bird

Into the world you came, and I was dumb,
Because "God did it," so the wise ones said;
I wonder sometimes "Did you really come?"
And "Are you truly . . . DEAD?"

Thus you went out -- alone and uncaressed;
O sweet, soft thing, in all your infant grace,
I never held you in my arms, nor pressed
Warm kisses on your face!

But, in the Garden of the Undefiled,
My soul will claim you . . . you, and not another;
I shall hold out my arms, and say "MY CHILD!"
And you will call me "MOTHER!"

Fay Inchfawn

Fay Inchfawn was the pen name of Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, a prolific British author and poet born in 1880. She published a variety of works, including poetry, essays, and books on homemaking, and was known for her cheerful, optimistic writing style. Her works often focused on domestic life and faith, resonating particularly with female readers in the early to mid-20th century. Beyond her literary output, little is widely known about her personal life. Fay Inchfawn passed away in 1978.

Fay Inchfawn

In Dorset Dear

Fay Inchfawn, Simple Poetry

Listening

Fay Inchfawn, Simple Poetry

Two Women

Fay Inchfawn, Simple Poetry

Within my House

Fay Inchfawn, Simple Poetry

English

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To Mother

I would that you should know,
Dear mother, that I love you -- love you so!
That I remember other days and years;
Remember childish joys and childish fears.
And this, because my baby's little hand
Opened my own heart's door and made me understand.

I wonder how you could
Be always kind and good!
So quick to hear; to tend
My smallest ills; to lend
Such sympathising ears
Swifter than ancient seer's.
I never yet knew hands so soft and kind,
Nor any cheek so smooth, nor any mind
So full of tender thoughts. . . . Dear mother, now
I think that I can guess a little how
You must have looked for some response, some sign,
That all my tiresome wayward heart was thine.

And sure it was! You were my first dear love!
You who first pointed me to God a...

Fay Inchfawn

When Baby Strayed

When Baby strayed, it seemed to me,
Sun, moon and stars waned suddenly.

At once, with frenzied haste, my feet
Ran up and down the busy street.

If ever in my life I prayed,
It was the evening Baby strayed.

And yet my great concern was this
(Not dread of losing Baby's kiss,

And Baby's soft small hand in mine,
And Baby's comradeship divine),

'Twas BABY'S terror, BABY'S fears!
Whose hand but mine could dry her tears?

I without Baby? In my need
I were a piteous soul indeed.

But piteous far, beyond all other,
A little child without a mother.

And God, in mercy, graciously
Gave my lost darling back to me.

O high and lofty One!
THOU couldst have lived to all eternity
Apart from ME!
In majest...

Fay Inchfawn

To a Rebellious Daughter

You call authority "a grievous thing."
With careless hands you snap the leading string,
And, for a frolic (so it seems to you),
Put off the old love, and put on the new.

For "What does Mother know of love?" you say.
"Did her soul ever thrill?
Did little tendernesses ever creep
Into her dreams, and over-ride her will?
Did her eyes shine, or her heart ever leap
As my heart leaps to-day?
I, who am young; who long to try my wings!

How should she understand,
She, with her calm cool hand?
She never felt such yearnings? And, beside,
It's clear I can't be tied
For ever to my mother's apron strings."

There are Infinities of Knowledge, dear.
And there are mysteries, not yet made clear
To you, the Uninitiate. . . . Life's book
Is open, ye...

Fay Inchfawn

To A Bird At Dawn

O bird that somewhere yonder sings,
    In the dim hour 'twixt dreams and dawn,
Lone in the hush of sleeping things,
    In some sky sanctuary withdrawn;
Your perfect song is too like pain,
And will not let me sleep again.

I think you must be more than bird,
    A little creature of soft wings,
Not yours this deep and thrilling word -
    Some morning planet 'tis that sings;
Surely from no small feathered throat
    Wells that august, eternal note.

As some old language of the dead,
    In one resounding syllable,
Says Rome and Greece and all is said -
    A simple word a child may spell;
So in your liquid note impearled
Sings the long epic of the world.

Unfathomed sweetness of your song,
    With ancient anguish at its core,

Richard Le Gallienne

The Foundling

Beautiful Mother, I have toiled all day;
        And I am wearied. And the day is done.
        Now, while the wild brooks run
Soft by the furrows--fading, gold to gray,
    Their laughters turned to musing--ah, let me
    Hide here my face at thine unheeding knee,
        Beautiful Mother; if I be thy son.

The birds fly low. Gulls, starlings, hoverers,
        Along the meadows and the paling foam,
        All wings of thine that roam
Fly down, fly down. One reedy murmur blurs
    The silence of the earth; and from the warm
    Face of the field the upward savors swarm
        Into the darkness. And the herds are home.

All they are stalled and folded for their rest,
        The creatures: cloud-fleece young that leap and veer;
        Mad-mane and...

Josephine Preston Peabody

In The Image Of God.

The falling of a leaf upon thy way,
The flutter of a bird along thy sky,
Thou God, to whom the ages are a day,
Ev'n such, alas! oh, ev'n such am I!

So long the time, O Lord, when I was not.
And ah, so long the time I shall not be,
So strange and small, so passing small my lot,
I cry aloud at thine immensity!

Will not thy garment brush the leaf aside?
Wilt thou, eternal, look upon the fall
Of one poor bird? Or canst thou, stooping wide
From thy great orbit, hearken to my call?

0, little child 0, little child and fool!
My planets are my gardens, where I go.
At morn and eve, at dawning and at cool.
To see my living green and mark it grow.

I know the leaves that fall from every tree,
I know the birds that nest those gardens through,

Margaret Steele Anderson