A Little Child's Monument

Front matter

BY

THE HON. RODEN NOEL

"Ya mati! ya mati!" "My dead! my dead!"

At his Grave

If death were an eternal sleep, I would lay me down by him, Never to wound more, nor to weep, Nor grope aweary, maimed, and dim, Inflict no injury, no pain, Nor ache with this dull doubt again! While the birken shadows pass O’er the marble and the grass, I lean upon thy cross and weep; Very sweet were sleep, With ne’er a tear, Nor hope nor fear! If thou behold me from thy bowers Smile on mine offering of flowers, And help me, dear! Thou hast entered into life, While we rave in mortal strife: Love, receive the offering Of unworthy words I bring!

Lo! I lay them on thy tomb; May they a little lighten gloom, Soothe an aching void, and bless In love's distress!

Thou should have laid me my in quiet grave, Sorrowing calm; And I with folded palm. But now above thine own behold I rave! With all thy life before thee so to die, Unseasonably! "Whom the gods love die young;" To that sweet saying, then, I clung.

Ghastly Doubt, and chilling Fear, The wan Ages' Quest is here, Trembling Hope, and faltering Faith, Intent on what God whispereth. It was thy leaving me that shook Content in this deluding nook Of rainbow life, that seems upbuoyed A moment in a rayless void; So I sought for firmer ground; And I tell to others what I found.

I would embalm thee in my verse: To loving souls it shall rehearse Thy loveliness when I am cold,

And fragrant with it, may enfold For other hearts in misery Faint solace; words were sweet to me From hearts, who mourned what seemed to be Dear, like thee: These are thy swathings of rare spice, A golden shrine with gems of price, A monument of my device.

Lament

I am lying in the tomb, love, Lying in the tomb, Tho' I move within the gloom, love, Breathe within the gloom! Men deem life not fled, dear, Deem my life not fled, Tho' I with thee am dead, dear, I with thee am dead, O my little child!

What is the grey world, darling, What is the grey world, Where the worm is curled, darling, The deathworm is curled? They tell me of the spring, dear! Do I want the spring? Will she waft upon her wing, dear,

The joy-pulse of her wing, Thy songs, thy blossoming, O my little child!

For the hallowing of thy smile, love, The rainbow of thy smile, Gleaming for a while, love, Gleaming to beguile! Replunged me in the cold, dear, Leaves me in the cold And I feel so very old, dear. Very, very old!

Would they put me out of pain, dear, Out of all my pain, Since I may not live again, dear, Never live again!

I am lying in the grave, love, In thy little grave, Yet I hear the wind rave, love, And the wild wave! I would lie asleep, darling, With thee lie asleep, Unhearing the world weep, darling, Little children weep! O my little child!

Dark Spring

Now the mavis and the merle Lavish their full hearts in song; Peach and almond boughs unfurl White and purple bloom along A blue burning air, All is very fair: But ah! the silence and the sorrow! I may not borrow Any anodyne for grief From the joy of flower or leaf, No healing to allay my pain From the cool of air or rain; Every sweet sound grew still, Every fair colour pale, When his life began to wane! They may never live again! A child's voice and visage will Evermore about me fail; And my weary feet will go Labouring as in deep snow: Though the year with glowing wine

Fill the living veins of vine, While a faint moon hangs between Broidery of a leafy screen; Though the glossy fig may swell, And Night hear her Philomel, While sweet lemon blossom breathes, And fair Sun his falchion wreathes With rich depending golden fruit, Or crimson roses at his foot, All is desolate and mute! Dark to-day, and dark to-morrow! Ah! the silence and the sorrow!

Night and Morning

Suggested by Chopin's Funeral March.

I.

In the grey cathedral, In the aisles of twilight, Wails an awful music, Whelming my drowned spirit Fathom-deep in woe. The hoar stone of ages Palpitates disaster, Breathes aware with sorrow, Weighs me down to death! All the immense wan spaces Pregnant with dead faces, Cold, carven forms arise! And grey walls bring forth! Vasty vans of darkness, Swordsweeps of desolation, Hound me to dim death! Born from the deep ocean

Of sounding mystery, In the ghostly forest Of colossal pillars Grows a dread procession: Tramp! tramp! tramp! Phantoms vast, sepulchral, With dim downward eyes, Move where yawns a dreary Fathomless abyss. What do they bear? they bear him, My All, my Heart, my Heaven! They let him fall therein! Fall! fall! fall! Fall ever in the abyss! And my soul wails over, Yearns to him in vain! Cruel world! O cruel spirit Of the world, with ne'er a heart! All in vain I moan imploring; Sleep! sleep! sleep!

II.

In the grey cathedral Dawn red rays of morning, And a sweet low music Lifts me from the grave. My dead pulses flutter,

As in spring the leaflet, Or young flower awaking, Wooed by the warm South … … A calm saint on a pinnacle Smiles in the day-dawn; Monumental marble With warm life-blood glows, Sweet small singers warble "Live! live! live!" And lo! a rush of angels, A cloud of spirits bright From soft sun-rays of opal, Woven to nests of light, Among celestial branchings Of the embowered height, Bear me back my darling, Smiling, rosed, alive, Alive! alive! alive! They only meant to scare me, All was but in play; The dismal shades were angels From my Father's day; Our Father knows why we must weep; He wipes our tears away.

But if a hair might perish From his sweet tendrilled head, God would be the devil,

Love and Truth were dead, Man a maniac, mooning A moment plausibly, Joy an idiot fooling, And life Death's leprosy! No! no! no! An Eye rules the wild sea Of human misery!

A Tomb at Palmyra

Full twenty years and still I seem to stand, As then, aloft in the tall tower-tomb So far within the expanse of Syrian sand, Alone, where long long ages in the gloom Of yon stone shelves a human dust hath lain,

How stealthily the memory removed

Later, the men who built the tomb dispersed, Their conquerors were heedless of the dead; Race following race, remembrance of the first, Like some fair pageant of the cloud, is fled; They, and the memory of them all erased, Faint characters an idle mood hath traced In sands of yonder ever-wandering waste. The shelves are void an alien spoiler soon

Upon these raving winds that roam the wild, For ever to be scattered, whirled, or piled

For ever to be heaped, and hounded there, In amicable rest, or rivalry With never-animate dust of the dun sea … … Anarchic spirits of the desert blast Celebrate all the ruin of the past! Shadowy Murder's dismal dialogue, Conspiring, ere she leap to disembogue Annihilating vials on my head, Who dare to stand alive among the dead. Carousals, wails from hollowhearts resound, Long agony of maniac souls around, Low moaning, shrieking, fading in a swound, Thundering exultant through the rifted tomb,

"Wait but a little, thou too shalt be there!"

Dead

I.

Where the child's joy-carol Rang sweeter than the spheres, There, centre of deep silence, Darkness, and tears. On his bed The child lay dead.

II.

There a man sat stolid, Stupefied and cold, Save when the lamp's flicker To poor love told Some mocking lie Of quivering eye, Or lip that said, "He is not dead."

III.

Weary Night went weeping, Moaning long and low, Till dim Dawn, awaking, Found them so— The heart that bled, And his dim dead.

IV.

"Measure him for his coffin," He heard a stranger say; And then he broke to laughing, "God! measure my poor clay, And shut me in my coffin, A soul gone grey! For hope lies dead, Life is fled."

The King and the Peasant

World-wide possessions, populous lands The monarch doth inherit, And lordlier kingdoms he commands, Fair realms within the spirit. The monarch had a little son, A child of five years old, The loveliest earth ere looked upon And he is lying cold. The king is in the olive grove, A hind sings in the tree; Below, the infant of his love Is babbling merrily. The father beats the boughs, and while Dark oval olives fly, The boy, with many a laugh and smile, Pursues them far and nigh. Blue sea between the grey-green leaves Twinkles, and the sun Through them a playful chequer weaves Over the little one.

The monarch gazes all unseen, Tears burning his wan eyes; Tenderly his love doth lean To bless their Paradise, As through black bars that foul the day, And shut him out from joy: Hear the world-envied monarch say, "Perish, my bauble crown, my toy, All the science, all the sway, Power to mould the world my way, Persuade to beauty the dull clay! Take all; but leave, ah! leave my boy, Give me back my life, my joy! This poor rude peasant I would be, Yet dare not breathe the wish that he Were as I am, a king, of misery!"

"A Milk-white Bloomed Acacia Tree"

A milk-white bloomed acacia tree, A flowery fair lawn, Lark-song upsoaring from the lea, In a rosy dawn; A little child who, while he sings,

The green acacia still blooms, And all the fairy flowers, Song thrills the chorister’s light plumes In blue celestial bowers; Darkling I wander in the wild, Looking for my little child I cannot hear his happy voice, Bidding all the world be lovely, and rejoice.

Mountain Lyric

A mountain spake to a sunny cloud, "Whither, my child, away?" "Father, the winds are calling loud To fields of air for play! Away! away! Father, O father, solemn-browed! Fly thou with me for play!" Nestled half in a sunny snow, And half in azure air, The cloudlet, pausing, loth to go And leave the mountain bare, With hazy hair, And misty feet in a sunny snow, May not linger there; Lithely curled in a merry breeze, With look still turned to earth, Wafted on viewless presences From the mystic mount of birth, With a merry mirth, Summoning fondly as he flees,

"O father, leave your earth!" Floating fair into sunny sky, Evanishing away, Praying the pine-veiled heights to fly, Dark furrowed heights of grey; "Away! away!" "Our roots are deep, we may not die," Stern crags responded wearily; Fly thou away, O child of day! The hallowing of thy sunny smile, Thy fingers of cool mist, Soothed my weary soul erewhile, And since thy lips have kissed, Lightning, blast, nor lashing rain, Snows, nor howling hurricane Mar my deep rest, Remembering thy heavenly smile; Fade thou away! And leave me grey!"

Early Primrose

There was a paly primrose, Budding very early In the little garden, When he lay so ill. "Do you think I may be Well enough to go there When the flower opens, Papa?" he asked of me. But only a day after Our little Sunshine left us, And the primrose opened The very day he died. I wonder if he saw it, Saw the flower open, Went to pay the visit Yonder after all! I know we laid the flower On a stilly bosom Of an ivory image; But I want to know

If indeed he wandered In the little garden, Or noted on the bosom Of his fading form The paly primrose open; How I want to know!

Sleep

Airily the leaves are playing In blue summer light, Fugitive soft shadow laying Lovingly o'er marble white, Where he lies asleep.

Lilies of the valley bending Lowly bells amid the green; Sweet moss roses meekly lending Their soft beauty to the scene Of his quiet sleep.

All around him heather glowing Purple in the sun; Sound of bees, and bird o'erflowing Lull my lost, my little one, Lying there asleep.

Harsher sight or sound be banished, For my child is gone to rest; These are telling of my vanished In the language of the blest, Wake him not from sleep!

In the Corsican Highlands

Cloud-chaos surges o'er a crest sublime, That seems forked lightning spell-bound into stone; Abruptly steep flame-pointed precipices, Dark as the night, dissolve to opaline In phantom foldings of circumfluent sea. Their natures blend confused; the mists assume A semblance of impenetrable rock; Stern rock relents to luminous faint cloud.

Their banners rent as in uproarious war, Behold! the vaporous battalions Unclose, dispelled and routed of loud winds, That drive them scared, and scattered; so Jehovah Clove that astounded sea for Israel. Yonder beneath me, the enormous crag Reveals, between grey ghostly robes of them, Solid, and rude, and perpendicular, A mighty front of Titans grandly piled, Umber, and gory red, and pallid green, Reared in some alien world beyond the cloud, Stronghold stupendous of immortal gods.

The rude, immense, straight pillars of grey pine Scale heaven, sustaining tempest-writhen roofs Of scant, green, level umbrage; they are built Athwart yon vaporous and vasty walls Of far-off mountain: over them arise Ruinous tower, fantastic pinnacle, And icy spire in a blue burning air. They overhang deep, forest-filled ravines Wandering seaward; whose dim serpentine Night ever hears a solemn utterance Of torrents, with deep monotone attuned To these wind-oracles of ancient pine. Yonder a gaunt trunk-Skeleton upbraids With blasted arms the Bolt that shattered it. Tusky black monsters reign within the gloom Of forest, and dead waters desolate: Dim mists drive blindly through portentous trees, While a weird Sun blinks dwarfed within the drilt: Legions of shadowy shaggy ilex climb Yon narrow-cloven hollows of the crag.

Now evening falls: an aromatic breath Of amber oozing from a dun-red bark, And mountain herb, and many a mountain flower Pervades the air slow clearing from the cloud: A vaselike cleft between two snowy peaks Glowingly fills with a pale violet; Beneath appears fair Ocean's purple line,

Far away from far portals of the pass. Lower, a surge of huge dun purple rock, Tumultuously contorted, rolls a rude And shadowy chaos interposed between Dark peaks and me: Night's ever-deepening gloom Engulfs the gorges: all is mighty Music, Phantasmal symphony of ghostly Form, A visionary Chorus with no sound!

Stern-visaged Isle! upon thy rocky breast Two sons were nurtured, heritors of fame. The one drew pride and ruin from thy veins, Towering portentous, terrible, alone, A scourge of God; Napoleon drew power To desolate the world; while Paoli Drank from dark fountains of thy resolute blood The patriot's unshamed integrity.

Behold! I stand within a place of graves: Low wooden-crosses o'er the lonely dead. Within the wondrous amphitheatre Of mountains overshadowing they rest; Watched, warded, in those awful arms they lie. Ah! Nature here hath roused herself to robe Her oft unheeded royalty in robes Of godlike splendour, that our eyes may see; Hath sounded, as with trumpet-blast of doom, That our dull ears may slumber not, but hear!

Brands with fierce fire upon the heedless heart Her names of wonder! yea, I know ye now: I bow my head in worship: yea, I feel Your majesty of godlike Presences; Stand here abashed, with mortal head bowed low Before you, Angels, Demons of the Lord!

Yet with no rapture of strong youth's acclaim I hail you, as a lowlier brother may Hail a liege lord, a hero, or a king. But I have come into your awful courts, A poor blind broken pilgrim from afar, Who faltering chances upon some august Assembly of dread princes, and bows low, Yet only craves to learn if haply he, Who used to lead his poor blind footsteps on With such clear-seeing love, a little child, Who has been lost to him, alas! for long, And whom he vainly seeks about the world, About the dreary, barren world, be here? But meeting no response to his demand, He can but idly weep a moment, ere He grope his weary way abroad again.

These are but void and ruined courts to me Of faded splendour, unremembered Power! I cannot see aright, I cannot feel. And while men prate of knowing all the laws,

The mortal cold possessing human hearts Weighs down their eyes in deep sepulchral gloom. But if some Angel's sword from forth the night, With vasty voice of Doom, by human tongues Called thunder, leapt, and smote me out of all These evil dreams named living, might I find My little child, and with him find the Lord?

We journey ever higher, through a grove Of moonlit chestnut, where a babbling stream, At intervals, in open forest glades, Flashes with ruffled, wandering, pale flame. The air is richly laden with sweet spoil From fragrant flower, and foliage faint-green; Shadowy-folded hills and dells involved Whisper of verdure lush, luxuriant, Known to fair elves, or rills who tinkling glide, Telling sweet secrets, haunted of shy beams, Whene'er the whims of leafy Ariels, And cloudy gossamer, aloft allow Their gentle wandering; tall asphodel, And flowery fennel, either side our way, Often we dim discern; but where the woods No longer in their colonnades of gloom Involve our path, beyond the precipice, Behold! how all the regions of the north,

By one supreme pale presence, Monte d'Oro! His spirit-robes far floating, a dim grey, Sombre with forest, pallid with the moon, His kingly crest snow-gleaming to the stars.

Pan is not dead! He lives! He lives for ever! These awful Demiurgic Powers named Nature Nourish, involve a half-alive, blind soul, A human soul, who fondly deems them dead. Surely the Lord is making us alive! Mine aching wound shall heal; for I shall find My lost, for whom I long; from thee, my friend, The weary burden of thy doubt shall pass. Sorrow and Wrong are pangs of a new birth: All we who suffer bleed for one another; No life may live alone, but all in all; We lie within the tomb of our dead selves, Waiting till One command us to arise.

In the Alps

Once more, once more, the heavenly heights environ, Here in the land remembering Rousseau, Thrilling with songs of Shelley and of Byron, And lovelier songs of lives purer than snow! Beautiful mother of the brave and free, Mother of deeds that live eternally, A beacon, like thy sunlit spires up yonder, A clarion, like the unfurling of loud thunder Among thine echoing ravines and rocks, And turbulent elemental shocks, Far-rolling banner, blazoned with fierce light, Shaken in false faces of the hosts of night!

I deem it well awhile to linger here. My weary heart was weakened with pale fear, And loss of him who made the world so dear, Low care, dull disappointment, and vain strife With strangling sins, and problems of mad life: My conquered soul lay open to despair, Whose cold grey waters moaned unchallenged there.

For not alone my dearest hope lay slain, And the few loved ones who are left me wane Like fairy gold, but all around lie blent In one dishonoured ruin, pale and rent, Children with women, lately fair as day, Now overmoaned by men who rave and pray For rest beside them! And my country hounds The oppressor on! she jeers at the death-wounds Of human hearts! England, who freed the slave, Now, for her base greed, thrusts him to his grave! Alas! in her dear bosom want and crime Horribly thrive, and lurk, waiting red harvest-time! It was before we knew him that I came; And now the glory seems no more the same. I longed to lead his childish footsteps here, And watch the wonder in his eyes appear, And welcome his glad accents ringing clear. I only hear low wind in the ravine, A voice of one disconsolate who may lean Among dark pines, lamenting what hath been! Voice of mad Time, who blindly brings to birth, And blindly ruins all her children's mirth, And crooning idly, sheds their petals upon earth! O desolate mother of mortals, who bewailest All thy sweet sons torn from thee, nor availest Aught to appease the hunger of dim Death, Who feedeth on thy cherished children's breath! Is it indeed as Sense and Seeming say,

The shepherd calling to his fellows In sparry hollows of the crags, Many a mountain demon bellows Among wild, caverned peaks and jags. Flowers in the pastoral valley Ever with soft breezes dally, Mellow bells of mild-eyed kine, While they saunter, and recline, Soothe the sense; on waters green A white-winged shallop sails serene. In a lofty upland bower Of foliage, whose verdures dower Far-off bloom of lake and hill With lovelier beauty, musing still, 'Neath young leaves I see fair roses Glowing over violet water, Whose calm iris-gleam reposes, Faintly clouded, Heaven's daughter, Leman's poet-haunted water! A far village in the heat Resting at the mountain's feet. Beyond, how solemnly! Among the cliffs of Meillerie,

Opal shafts of misty shining Stream athwart the deep ravine, Where I never cease divining Tall rude phantom forms that lean In reverie Over one another's shoulder, Solemn guardians of the gorge, Till a fleecy cloudlet fold her Wings awhile upon the verge, A well-beloved guest: In the gloom of mountain splendour, In dusk oriental gold Of their rich raiment, oh, how tender Seemed the silver-pinioned rover From a far celestial fold! Rude earth spirits may but love her, Nor ever dare to hold From her rest! And a smile stole over furrowed Faces of old earthworn mountain; To each and all who so had sorrowed The dewy cloud wits youth's own fountain Of happiness divine. Lo! now the loftier heights all hoary Gleam with white wings of Angel presence, So fledged with plumes we scarce may know Sheeny cloud from downy snow, Until I marvel if, in the glory

Of yon serene ethereal pleasance, Mine angel, mine! Nestle softly with the rest; If a moment he reposes On the aerial mount of Roses! Or where from Jungfrau's radiant breast Roll white thunderous avalanches, And the dim ravine swift blanches With a ghostly snow Fair, far below! So white-winged Consolation glides Into a heart where Death abides … … Is it a loud acclaim of deep immortal voices, When all the effulgent host of warriors rejoices, And the ever-burning fire Of holy love leaps higher, For wings of seraphs rushing from their light on high, Into earth's deadly shadow, to help mortality? … … Or near Eigher's pyramid May my lovely child lie hid, With the pulsing evening star, In realms of roses fair and far?

And tho' I come no more as erst I came, Fleet-foot as wind, with youthful eyes aflame, Eager to scale thy snows, and gladly dare, Free as a fawn, heart-whole as mountain air, But halting with dull weight of years and pain,

Shame and remorse, and little doubtful gain; Surely 'tis well once more awhile to be Here in the morning land of holiest Liberty! Here in the presence-chamber of high Nature, Here at the feet of her immortal stature, Gazing within her calm supernal eyes, My soul, assoiled from earth's insanities, Casts the low corse of folly, lust, and death, And loosed from suffocation, draws free breath, Inhaling draughts of powers divine, that are Eternal strength in spirit, earth, and star; Learneth endurance from stern, silent mountains, And youthful hope from the everflowing fountains, Indomitable ardour by strong-sounding floods, Deep contemplation in dim-dreaming woods, Lofty aspiring, with firm faith, From all yon soaring hierarchy saith, And the sublime still host of worlds that travelleth; Untiring battle with the foe within, Until, through Christ, I conquer all my sin, And sleepless war upon His enemies without,

Yea, thou, my darling, gleaming out of God A moment o'er the wintry path I trod, Tellest, we toil, we climb, we faint, we fall; Yet ever rise, until we rest, Love reigning all in all! Yea, now and evermore Love reigneth over all.

Only a Little Child

A Voice.

Only a little child! Stone cold upon a bed! Is it for him you wail so wild, As though the very world were dead? Arise, arise! Threaten not the tranquil skies!

Do not all things die? 'Tis but a faded flower! Dear lives exhale perpetually With every fleeting hour. Rachael for ever weeps her little ones; For ever Rizpah mourneth her slain sons. Arise, arise! Threaten not the tranquil skies!

Only a little child! Long generations pass: Behold them flash a moment wild With stormlight, a pale headlong mass

Of foam, into unfathomable gloom! Worlds and shed leaves have all one doom. Arise, arise! Threaten not the tranquil skies.

Should Earth's tremendous Shade Spare only you and yours? Who regardeth empires fade Untroubled, who impassive pours Human joy, a mere spilt water, Revels red with human slaughter! Arise, arise! Threaten not the tranquil skies.

Another Voice.

… Only a little child! He was the world to me. Pierced to the heart, insane, defiled, All holiest hope! foul mockery, Childhood's innocent mirth and rest; Man's brief life a brutal jest. There is no God; Earth is Love's sepulchral sod!

Another Voice.

Only a little child! Ah! then, who brought him here? Who made him loving, fair, and mild, And to your soul so dear?

His lowly spirit seemed divine, Burning in a heavenly shrine. Arise, arise! With pardon for the tranquil skies.

Only a little child! Who sleeps upon God's heart! Jesus blessed our undefiled, Whom no power avails to part From the life of Him who died And liveth, whatsoe'er betide! Whose are eyes Tranquiller than starlit skies!

Only a little child! For whom all things are: Spring and summer, winter wild, Sea and earth, and every star, Time, the void, pleasure and pain, Hell and heaven, loss and gain! Life and death are his, and he Rests in God's eternity. Arise, arise! Love is holy, true, and wise, Mirrored in the tranquil skies.

God's Child

He wanders round the garden wild, I hear him singing sweet; I know it is my fairy child, I hear his dancing feet.

Birds low warble in the nest, Leaves murmur merrily; My boy is leaning on the breast Of God most tranquilly.

He gazes in deep eyes Divine, With innocent clear eyes; He is God's baby more than mine The Father is all-wise.

Carol, my darling! laugh and leap! For art thou not God's own? … … Ah wildly, wildly must I weep … God hath destroyed His son!

Stabbed with a sudden traitor thrust The heart so unafraid! Then dung him down into the dust, To perish on the blade!

Earth felt, and, staggered with the blow, Reeled shuddering under me! Dead worlds, like shrivelled leaves, fell low From Life’s uprooted tree!

How shall I name Thee, Thou Supreme? Hate, Treachery, or Crime? … … When may we rise from our dark dream Beyond the bounds of Time? …

He is but folded closer still Within the Father’s bosom, Lest our earth airs may work him ill, My baby boy, my blossom!

Music and the Child

I.

An organ-player comes rarely round To our lone moorland place; My darling at the welcome sound Runs with laughter in his face To the nursery window, hailing, With melodious mirth unfailing, The sunburnt, black-bearded man, Who greets him in Italian. Then he brings and sets a chair, Humming over every air, Feigns to turn a handle deftly, Feigns to talk Italian swiftly, Fair in little blouse of blue, Sweet of heart and form and hue.

II.

Pale, my love, with dews of anguish From the night beneath his curls, Lies asleep; and while we languish In despair, behold! there purls

A rill of music from afar: Can the favourite organ jar So upon our hearts? We fear Lest it waken him; yet hear Him, waking, pray for it to come Under the window of his room, Asking that his friend, the player, May have food; we grant the prayer. Then he lists to every tune, Growing very weary soon.

III.

Baby lies upon the bed, And our hearts with him lie dead. Baby lies with fair white blossom In his hair and hand and bosom: Only he is lovelier far Than earth's fairest flowers are! And while we cower, smitten low By our baby boy's death-blow, Draws again the organ near … Ah! Baby never more may hear.

IV.

When the little child was going, From his lips came softly flowing,

Flowing dreamily, the tune Of a hymn that asks a boon In childish accents of the Saviour, Who, by the love in his behaviour, Showed God cherishes a child; And whensoe'er pain made him wild, His mother sang it; then, released, The child himself sang on, nor ceased On earth till he commenced in heaven. For I think that fatal even, While upon death's wave he drifted, While the mist of life was lifted, On our earth-shore he heard his mother, And pure angels on the other;

Even so she sang to him, While his lovely eyes grew dim, In fair former eves, while he Loosed waifs of singing dreamily, Till he floated into sleep. Now it is more strange and deep. "Jesus," he murmured, hearing the Lord call: "Fear not, My darling, on My heart to fall!"

V.

Then in the depth of our despair, A vision found me lying there. She and I were cowering Before the swoop of Death's dark wing, That, sweeping him to nothingness, Plunged our souls in the abyss, Stone-eyed to stare upon the gloom, Frantic to challenge the deaf tomb, Beating upon its iron door For him who shall return no more! Death echoing from his awful vault In ghastly mockery of our assault! Wanderers ever, wanting only one, Calling upon the name of our lost little son!