Volume IV Part 1 (1/2)

The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Volume IV.

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

POEMS

A CHILD'S GRAVE AT FLORENCE.

A.A.E.C.

Born, July 1848. Died, November 1849

I.

Of English blood, of Tuscan birth, What country should we give her?

Instead of any on the earth, The civic Heavens receive her.

II.

And here among the English tombs In Tuscan ground we lay her, While the blue Tuscan sky endomes Our English words of prayer.

III.

A little child!--how long she lived, By months, not years, is reckoned: Born in one July, she survived Alone to see a second.

IV.

Bright-featured, as the July sun Her little face still played in, And splendours, with her birth begun, Had had no time for fading.

V.

So, LILY, from those July hours, No wonder we should call her; She looked such kins.h.i.+p to the flowers,-- Was but a little taller.

VI.

A Tuscan Lily,--only white, As Dante, in abhorrence Of red corruption, wished aright The lilies of his Florence.

VII.

We could not wish her whiter,--her Who perfumed with pure blossom The house--a lovely thing to wear Upon a mother's bosom!

VIII.

This July creature thought perhaps Our speech not worth a.s.suming; She sat upon her parents' laps And mimicked the gnat's humming;

IX.

Said ”father,” ”mother”--then left off, For tongues celestial, fitter: Her hair had grown just long enough To catch heaven's jasper-glitter.