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ONLY MINE
They told me what she had done—
Of her life like a river free:
Teaching and showing with tender truth,
Giving her light to age and youth,
Till fathers and mothers and children grew
To listen and learn and see
What the village had come to be;
How they had no sickness, young or old,
And had lost but one from all their fold;
For all the people knew
How to keep life strong and true;
And I asked her how had her love begun
To ripen and reach to every one.
She lifted a royal head,
Standing straight, as a tree;
While troops of little ones clustered and clung
To raiment and hand and knee.
"Should I not be glad," said she,
"In health and beauty and joy like this?
Babies by hundreds to cuddle and kiss;
A happier town was never sung;
A heaven of children for old and young;
There is only one that is dead—
It was only mine," she said.
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