Poetry On The Death Of A Child
One midnight, while her constant tears
Were falling with the dew
She heard a voice, and lo! her child
Stood by her weeping too!
His shroud was damp, his face was white,
He said, -- I cannot sleep,
Your tears have made my shroud so wet,
O, mother, do not weep!
O, love is strong! -- the mother's heart
Was filled with tender fears;
O, love is strong! and for her child
Her grief restrained its tears.
Somebody's baby was buried to-day --
The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back,
And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay
As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way,
And a shadow seemed drawn o'er the sun's golden track.
It must be when the baby
Goes journeying off alone,
Some angel (Mary, may be)
Adopts it for her own.
Yet when a child is taken
Whose mother stays below,
With weeping eyes, through Paradise,
I seem to see it go.
A baby went to heaven while it slept,
And, waking, missed its mother's arms, and wept.
Those angel tear-drops, falling earthward through
God's azure skies, into the turquoise grew.
My heart responds with a lonely cry --
But in the wonderful Bye-and-Bye --
Out from the window of God's To Be,
That other baby shall beckon to me.
Fate gave the word, the arrow sped,
And pierc'd my darling's heart;
And with him all the joys are fled
Life can to me impart.
By cruel hands the sapling drops,
In dust dishonour'd laid:
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
My age's future shade.
--------------A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear.
And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.
The birds sang in the branches,
With sweet, familiar tone;
But the voices of the children
Will be heard in dreams alone!
And the boy that walked beside me,
He could not understand
Why closer in mine, ah! closer,
I pressed his warm, soft hand!
