Volume IV Part 1 (2/2)

X.

Babes! Love could always hear and see Behind the cloud that hid them.

”Let little children come to Me, And do not thou forbid them.”

XI.

So, unforbidding, have we met, And gently here have laid her, Though winter is no time to get The flowers that should o'erspread her:

XII.

We should bring pansies quick with spring, Rose, violet, daffodilly, And also, above everything, White lilies for our Lily.

XIII.

Nay, more than flowers, this grave exacts,-- Glad, grateful attestations Of her sweet eyes and pretty acts, With calm renunciations.

XIV.

Her very mother with light feet Should leave the place too earthy, Saying ”The angels have thee, Sweet, Because we are not worthy.”

XV.

But winter kills the orange-buds, The gardens in the frost are, And all the heart dissolves in floods, Remembering we have lost her.

XVI.

Poor earth, poor heart,--too weak, too weak To miss the July s.h.i.+ning!

Poor heart!--what bitter words we speak When G.o.d speaks of resigning!

XVII.

Sustain this heart in us that faints, Thou G.o.d, the self-existent!

We catch up wild at parting saints And feel Thy heaven too distant.

XVIII.

The wind that swept them out of sin Has ruffled all our vesture: On the shut door that let them in We beat with frantic gesture,--

XIX.

To us, us also, open straight!

The outer life is chilly; Are _we_ too, like the earth, to wait Till next year for our Lily?

XX.

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