Aline Murray Kilmer

"When people inquire I always just state: "I have four nice children and hope to have eight.""

"St. Brigid, please keep My babies asleep!"

"Deborah danced, when she was two, As buttercups and daffodils do; Spirited, frail, naïvely bold, Her hair a ruffled crest of gold."

"My heart shall keep the child I knew, When you are really gone from me, And spend its life remembering you As shells remember the lost sea."

"I shall not be afraid any more, Either by night or day; What would it profit me to be afraid With you away? * * * For there is only sorrow in my heart; There is no room for fear. But how I wish I were afraid again, My dear, my dear!"

"There is a mirror in my room Less like a mirror than a tomb, There are so many ghosts that pass Across the surface of the glass."

"For life seems only a shuddering breath, A smothered, desperate cry, And things have a terrible permanence When people die."

"Smilingly, out of my pain, I have woven a little song; You may take it away with you. I shall not sing it again."

"I sing of little loves that glow Like tapers shining through the rain. Of little loves that break themselves Like moths against the window-pane."

"If I live till my fighting days are done I must fasten my armour on my eldest son."

"I’m sorry you are wiser, I’m sorry you are taller; I liked you better foolish, And I liked you better smaller."

"Here, Cyprian, is my jeweled looking-glass, My final gift to bind my final vow: I cannot see myself as I once was; I would not see myself as I am now."