from Aurora Leigh, Book One

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1856

…Women know

The way to rear up children, (to be just),

They know a simple, merry, tender knack

Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes,

And stringing pretty words that make no sense,

And kissing full sense into empty words;

Which things are corals to cut life upon,

Although such trifles: children learn by such,

Love’s holy earnest in pretty play.

And get not over-early solemnized,—

But seeing, as in a rose bush, Love’s Divine,

Which burns and hurts not, not a single bloom,—

Become aware and unafraid of Love.

Such good do mothers.     …