Francis Burdett Money-Coutts (1852-1923). From 'A Little Sequence'. Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. 1922. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

From ‘A Little Sequence’

By Francis Burdett Money-Coutts (1852–1923)


I NO wonder you so oft have wept;
For I was born unblest:
Yet wounded creature never crept
To you but found a rest;

To you the patient hound’s mild eyes	5
Are turn’d in perfect trust,
And into yours, with sure surmise,
The baby’s hand is thrust;

The little birds make you their friend,
The flowers in your sweet hand	10
Arrange themselves, and graceful bend,
As if they understand.

And when these die,—the household pet,—
The babe (though not your own),—
Yes, or the very flowers,—you fret	15
To fly where they have flown.

II FORGIVE!
And tell me that sweet tale,
How you and I one day may live
In some diviner vale.	20

In some diviner vale, dear child,
Than this in which we lie
And watch the monstrous mountains piled
And clouded into sky.

Yet even there, far out of reach	25
Are peaks we cannot scale,
For God has something still to teach
In that diviner vale.