David Welch | + Follow Poet |
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Children of Their Own

There one was a rich woman back
in eighteen ninety-three,
she was a well-established wife
at the age of forty,
and she had born no children
since she lost one long ago,
her husband blamed himself for that,
but neither of them could know.

They had a big country estate,
went back hundreds of years,
and all of England knew of them,
from commoners to peers,
with some of the finest gardens
that your eyes even could see,
all maintained by a teenager
who could grow up prize lilies.

Now this boy had seen sixteen years,
an orphan with no kin,
and so the lord and the lady did
try to be nice to him.
They let him live in the gatehouse,
ensured he always had food,
made sure he came to their parties
to smooth off the edges rude.

Rumors said they would adopt him
and make the boy their own,
more and more people saw the lad
inside the mighty home.
The woman could be a mother,
and the boy have real parents,
people did see, they all agreed,
that it seemed heaven-sent.

The husband was a business man,
he traveled all the time.
he liked having a protector
that he could leave behind,
believed his wife would be safe with
a strong lad there on the scene,
started spending more time away
to earn piles of the green.

It was when he was far away
that the lad did storm out,
and from the look upon his face
he wouldn’t turn around.
What had happened between the two
bobody could rightly tell,
until three short months later when
her belly began to swell.

It was then that folks realized,
began to understand,
she didn’t want a teenage son,
she’d wanted a young man
that she could use as a father
for the baby that she craved,
and she wouldn’t leave her husband,
so the young man ran away.

Folks though it would be a scandal
when her husband returned,
cuckolded within your own house,
enough to make men burn.
But it soon became clear to all
he thought the child was his,
and went around telling people
of this miraculous gift.

The husband was so jubilant,
soon by all it was known,
he and his wife had so long prayed
for children of their own.
And the man was just so happy,
you could see it in his eyes,
no one had the heart to tell him
that his wife did cheat and lie.

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