Motherly Precaution
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1Translated onto glass from copper plates
As from Rembrandt or Brueghel or their heirs
In whose busy depictions such an act
Is incidental, some side-alley fact,
2Now placed here in the center by Millet --
This all too human scene, both rude and true:
A mother wrinkling up her young son’s gown
Before he wets himself on backdoor steps
3Where his six-year-old sister, shrinking, stares
At the wobbly colossus, wholly exposed.
His soft hand grips his mother’s muscled wrist,
Still nearer to the milked than milky breast
4That manly hands will master, hard and warm,
Till old age brings him trembling to a crone
Who’ll lead to the darkened doorway-stones once more
This human flesh incontinent with need.
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Référence électronique
David Middleton, « Motherly Precaution », Revue LISA/LISA e-journal [En ligne], Le coin des écrivains, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2005, consulté le 19 avril 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/lisa/577 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/lisa.577
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