The Dusty Bookcase: Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 8: 'Mended' by Edith Lelean Groves

22 April 2022

Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 8: 'Mended' by Edith Lelean Groves

For the month, the eighth of ten poems

I find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

Verse from Edith Lelean Groves' Everyday Children (Toronto: The Committee in Charge of the Edith L. Groves Memorial Fund for Underprivileged Children, 1932)

MENDED

"You've mended my dolly, now please mend me."
And the sapphire eyes they were dim
As she showed me her poor bent twisted foot,
And her queer little mis-shaped limb.

"My dolly was hurled worse than me,
For her stuffing came out, and then
Her foot it came off, Oh, she was a sight!
But they've made her over again.

"I think I'm most as important as she,
Dad calls me his own precious pearl,
And mummy she cries, for I'm all that they've got,
That one little onliest girl.

"I'm awfully tired of braces and things,
And crutches that weight most a ton,
I want to run round on my own two feet,
Like the others and have some fun."

So early one day they carried her off,
With never a sigh or a frown,
To a wonderful children's hospital,
In the heart of her own home town.

"Why I think," she said, "this is fairyland!"
And then she was sure it was Heaven,
The nurses were kind and the doctors good,
To this dear little girl just seven.

And they straightened her mis-shaped twisted foot,
Though the time it seemed very long,
She never grumbled but cheered the rest up
Right bravely with chatter and song.

And this all has a fairy tale ending,
For gladness and joy and laughter
Came into the life of the little girl,
Happy she lived ever after.