Adoption

 Because I was a woman lone
 And had of friends so few,
I made two little ones my own,
 Whose parents no one knew;
Unwanted foundlings of the night,
 Left at the convent door,
Whose tiny hands in piteous plight
 Seemed to implore.


By Deed to them I gave my name,
 And never will they know
That from the evil slums they came,
 Two waifs of want and woe;
I fostered them with love and care
 As if they were my own:
Now John, my son, is tall and fair,
 And dark is Joan.


My boy's a member of the Bar,
 My girl a nurse serene;
Yet when I think of what they are
 And what they might have been,
With shuddering I glimpse a hell
 Of black and bitter fruit .
 .
 .

Where John might be a criminal,
 And Joan--a prostitute.

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