THINK THAT YOUR BABE IS THERE.
Whene'er yon vacant cradle, or the robes
That decked the lost one's form, call back a tide
Of alienated joy, can ye not trust
Your treasure to His arms, whose changeless care
Passeth a mother's love? Can ye not hope,
When a few wasting years their course have run,
To go to him, though he no more on earth
Returns to you?
And when glad faith doth catch
Some echo of celestial harmonies,
Archangels' praises, with the high response
Of cherubim, and seraphim, O think ----
Your babe is there!
MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.
"I SHALL GO TO HIM, BUT HE SHALL NOT RETURN TO ME."
WHILE sickness rent thine infant frame,
Before our God we wept and prayed;
But when His heavenly summons came,
Fond nature struggled, and obeyed.
We laid thee in thy early rest,
And changed the burden of our prayer:
May He who took thee to the blest,
But make thee our forerunner there!
THOUGHT AT A CHILD'S GRAVE.
Of many a dark hour, and of many a prayer,
To bring the heart back from an infant gone!
Hope must give o'er, and busy fancy blot
Its images from all the silent rooms,
And every sight and sound familiar to her
Undo its sweetest link; and so, at last,
The fountain that, once loosed, must flow forever,
Will hide and waste in silence. When the smile
Steals to her pallid lip again, and spring
Wakens its buds above thee, we will come,
And, standing by thy music-haunted grave,
Look on each other cheerfully, and say,
A child that we have loved is gone to heaven,
And by this gate of flowers she passed away!
He was my only child; how fair he looked,
In the white garment that encircled hım !
'T was like a marble slumber, and when we
Laid him beneath the green earth in his bed,
I thought my heart was breaking: yet I lived,
But I am weary now.
STRAIGHT and still the baby lies, No more smiling in his eyes, Neither tears nor wailing cries.
Smiles and tears alike are done:
He has need of neither one
Only I must weep alone.
Tiny fingers, all too slight,
Hold within their grasping tight,
Waxen berries scarce more white.
Nights and days of weary pain,
I have held them close - in vain;
Now I never shall again.
Crossed upon a silent breast,
By no suffering distressed,
Here they lie in marble rest.
They shall ne'er unfolded be,
Never more in agony
Cling so pleadingly to me.
Never! O, the hopeless sound
To my heart, so closely wound
All his little being round!
I forget the shining crown,
Glad exchange for cross laid down,
Now his baby brows upon.
Yearning sore, I only know
I am very full of woe
And I want my baby so!
Selfish heart, that thou shouldst prove
So unworthy of the love
Which thine idol doth remove!
Blinded eyes, that cannot see,
Past the present misery,
Joy and comfort full and free!
O! my Father, loving Lord!
I am ashamed at my own word;
Strength and patience me afford.
I will yield me to Thy will;
Now Thy purposes fulfil;
Only help me to be still.
Though my mother-heart shall ache,
I believe that, for Thy sake,
It shall not entirely break.
And I know I yet shall own,
For my seeds of sorrow sown,
Sheaves of joy around Thy throne!
DEATH to the mother said,
"Thou canst not keep the baby still, let me !
Thou mark'st with pain his gasping, feverish
With one long kiss I set it free,
And on his brow the signet write
Of immortality!
Oft thou dost strive to lay
In smoothness down his golden hair: let me !
Smoother beneath thy touch 't will never be,
Nor look more bright and fair!
Nay, weep not, that his toilet I would make,
Closing like violet up his eyes of blue;
For know'st thou not, earth-flowers as frail as
Were better closed against life's chilling dew?
The sheet no more thou 'lt fold,
Above his dimpled limbs over and o'er;
So statue like, inanimate and cold,
They will lie bare no more!
The form that holds thy baby to His breast
Thou wilt not look to see!
Nor hear'st the soft voice breaking through his
Suffer the little one to come to Me!'
|