MOTHERLESS, a poem

HE was so small, so very small,
     That since she ceased to care,
'T was easy just to pass him by,
     Forgetting he was there;
But though too slight a thing he seemed
     Of interest to be,—
One heart had loved him with a love
     As boundless as the sea.

He was so poor, so very poor,
     That now, since she had died,
He seemed a tiny threadbare coat
     With nothing much inside;
But, ah! a treasure he concealed,
     And asked of none relief:
His shabby little bosom hid
     A mighty, grown-up grief.

"Motherless" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Bazar (September 1904), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.