Others may yield to the eye of God a "timid leaf" and an "uncertain bud," While--see how this mere chance sown, cleft-nursed seed That sprang up by the wayside 'neath the foot Of the enemy, this breaks all into blaze, Spreads itself, one wide glory of desire To incorporate the whole great sun it loves From the inch-height whence it looks and longs.

My flower, My rose, I gather for the breast of God.
As she lies on her pallet, dying "in the good house that helps the poor to die," she is far withdrawn from the things of time; her life, with all its pleasures and its pains, seems strange and far away-- Looks old, fantastic and impossible: I touch a fairy thing that fades and fades.
Two possessions, out of what life has brought, remain with her--the babe, who while yet unborn had converted her from a sufferer to a defender, and the friend who has saved her soul.

Even motherhood itself is not the deepest thing in Pompilia's nature.

The little Gaetano, whom she had held in her arms for three days, will change; he will grow great, strong, stern, a tall young man, who cannot guess what she was like, who may some day have some hard thought of her.

He too withdraws into the dream of earth.