Grandfather’s Love

They said he sent his love to me,
They wouldn’t put it in my hand,
And when I asked them where it was
They said I couldn’t understand.

I thought they must have hidden it,
I hunted for it all the day,
And when I told them so at night
They smiled and turned their heads away.

They say that love is something kind,
That I can never see or touch.
I wish he’d sent me something else,
I like his cough-drops twice as much.

Selection from “Two Songs for a Child,” Helen of Troy, and Other Poems. NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, 1911. | Source: Project Gutenberg.
Painting: “A Rival Attraction” by Charles Burton Barber, 1887.