My son! my son! I cannot speak the rest--
Ye who have sons can only know my fondness!
Ye who have lost them, or who fear to lose,
Can only know my pangs! none else can guess them;
A mother's sorrows cannot be conceived
But by a mother!
1414
Pomponius Atticus, who pronounced a funeral oration on the death of his
mother, protested that though he had resided with her sixty-seven years,
he was never once reconciled to her; "because," said he, "there never
happened the least discord between us, and consequently there was no
need of reconciliation."
1415