Live and Learn
...ful chirps” after her “Chief of the brood”, or oldest son, left for “regions far” (11, 9, 10). This was the start of much heartache to follow. She begins to imagine all the terrible things that could happen to her children. When her children were under her “wings” she “kept off all harm” (60). Now that they are without her protection, her “cares are more and fears than ever” (61). She imagines all the possible traps that life can bring as they may “fall un’wares in fowler’s snare” or be “spoiled” by “greedy hawks” (48, 54). She taught them everything she could, but the real world can be a much different place. That is why she says, “of perils you are ignorant” (64). For fear of worrying the children at home, the speaker keeps her fears to herself. “If birds could weep, then would my tears / Let others know what are my fears” (43-44). She is trying to be strong for the “other three [that] still with [her] nest” (39). The speaker is also trying to be strong for the five children who have already left. She doesn’t want them to feel responsible for the “thoughts” that “sadly rest” upon her “breast” (56,55). Keeping these feelings inside are proving to be unhealthy. She speaks of her “throbs such now as ‘fore were never” (62). Her emotional heart is full of worry, which causes her physical heart to beat rapidly in anxiety. After the mother speaks of her throbs, she warns her children to “have an eye” for their “safety” (67). She then immediately talks of her death as a flight from the “top bough” and “Into a country beyond sight” (77, 78)...