ページの画像
PDF
ePub

THE INFANT'S SOUL.

SWEET baby, little as thou art,
Thou art a human whole;

Thou hast a little human heart,
Thou hast a deathless soul.

Yet, being all that man can be,
There's something yet behind;

Sweet angels in their ministry
Must yet build up the mind.

Soul! never say the soul is not
In thing that does not think;
No thought hast thou, sweet thing, I wot,
When thy thin eyelids wink.

The soul is life, the life that lives,
And shall exist for aye;

And buzzes 'mid the million hives

That swarm out every day.

In every man, in every babe,

Beneath the spacious cope,

Where eastern wight with astrolabe

Might take the horoscope.

TO DEAR LITTLE KATY HILL.

OFT have I conn'd, in merry mood or grave,
For many a babe a sad or merry stave,
In merry love of softly smiling baby,

Or love subdued by fear of what it may be.
But then all babies are so much alike,
"Twere easier far to single out a spike,
The fairest spike in all a field of barley ;
Or mid the drops of dew that late or early
Shine to the rising or the setting sun,
To mark and memorise a single one;
In a long bank to find the violet

That is, or should be, Flora's own dear pet;
To stamp a signet on the sweetest note
That spins itself in Philomela's throat;
The very whitest spot of all to show
In a flat ocean of untainted snow;
The blackest spot of utter dark to tell,
Or do aught else which is impossible,

Than to explain to each expectant mother
How her sweet thing is sweeter than another.
So ancient fathers deemed, and wisely deemed,
Or, if not so, yet beautifully dreamed,

At the last day, the day of wrath and love,
The cherished nestlings of the mystic dove

Shall spring from earth and meet the promised skies
All in one shape, one feature, and one size,
Welcome alike before the Almighty throne,
Each in the Saviour's likeness, not its own,
Alike all blessed, and alike all fair,

And only God remember who they were.
Yet love on earth will always make or find
(They saw but ill who said that Love was blind)
In things most like a lovely difference,
Distinguish innocence from innocence.

And lynx-eyed Love, my little Catherine,
Perceives a self in that smooth brow of thine:
Thy small sweet mouth, with speechless meaning rife,
Moves hopes and smiles with something more than

life:

The lucid whiteness of the flower-soft skin,
Transparent, shows a wakening soul within,
That ever and anon peeps through those eyes,
Soft as the tenderest light of vernal skies,

Blue as the shadow of the halcyon's breast,
On the calm waves herself has lulled to rest;
Informed with light, by turns revealed and hid
By gentle movement of the dewy lid :
E'en in the quivering of thy little hands
A spirit lives and almost understands.

Oh, may each omen of thy form and hue,

The lamb's pure white, the clear and hopeful blue,
The gracious blending of unbroken lines,
Which thy round shape continuously combines,
Portend the blended graces of a soul

Whose various virtues form a virtuous whole!

« 前へ次へ »