Adoption

Robert William Service

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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