Volume Iii Part 21 (1/2)
It is enough to bear This image still and fair-- This holier in sleep, Than a saint at prayer: This aspect of a child Who never sinned or smiled-- This presence in an infant's face: This sadness most like love, This love than love more deep, This weakness like omnipotence, It is so strong to move!
Awful is this watching place, Awful what I see from hence-- A king, without regalia, A G.o.d, without the thunder, A child, without the heart for play; Ay, a Creator rent asunder From His first glory and cast away On His own world, for me alone To hold in hands created, crying--Son!
XIII.
That tear fell not on Thee Beloved, yet Thou stirrest in Thy slumber!
Thou, stirring not for glad sounds out of number Which through the vibratory palm-trees run From summer wind and bird, So quickly hast Thou heard A tear fall silently?-- Wak'st Thou, O loving One?
_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._
FOOTNOTE:
[M] It is a Jewish tradition that Moses died of the kisses of G.o.d's lips.
A BEDSIDE DITTY.
Baby, baby dear, Earth and heaven are near Now, for heaven is here.
Heaven is every place Where your flower-sweet face Fills our eyes with grace.
Till your own eyes deign Earth a glance again, Earth and heaven are twain.
Now your sleep is done, s.h.i.+ne, and show the sun Earth and heaven are one.
_Algernon Charles Swinburne._
GIVEN BACK ON CHRISTMAS MORN.
(A MOTHER WATCHES BY HER SICK BABE.)
Round about the cas.e.m.e.nt Wail the winds of winter; Shaken from the frozen eaves Many an icy splinter.
On the hillside, in the hollow, Weaving wreaths of snow: Now in gusts of solemn music Lost in murmurs low; Howling now across the wold In its shroudlike vastness, Like the wolves about a fold In some Alpine fastness, Hungered by the cold.
(THE MOTHER SINGS.)
Babe of mine--babe of mine, Must I lose you?
Dare I weep if the Divine Will should choose you?-- Ah, to mourn, as I have smiled, At the thought of you, my child!
Ah, my child--my child!
Babe of mine--you entwine With existence!
If one strips the clinging vine There's resistance-- Shall not I then----? I talk wild, Seeing Death so near my child:-- Ah, my child--my child!
Babe of mine--heart's best wine-- Life's pure essence!
Gloomy shadows, that define Death's near presence.
Dim those dear eyes, undefiled As G.o.d's violets--ah, my child: Ah, my child--my child!
The imperial purple of the night Is spread, wine-dark, above, But glistens with no gems of light, To hint of Heaven's love.
A sombre pall hangs overhead, Fringed with lurid clouds of lead,-- O'er the sleeping earth below One long, wide waste of silent snow, And the wind moans drearily As it wanders by, And the night wanes wearily In the starlight sky.
(THE MOTHER SINGS.)