The Dolly's Mother

A little maid, of summers four--
Did you compute her years,--
And yet how infinitely more
To me her age appears:

I mark the sweet child's serious air,
At her unplayful play,--
The tiny doll she mothers there
And lulls to sleep away,

Grows--'neath the grave similitude--
An infant real, to me,
And she a saint of motherhood
In hale maturity.

So, pausing in my lonely round,
And all unseen of her,
I stand uncovered--her profound
And abject worshipper.