Silent Baby. Ellen Bartlett Currier. Poems of Home: I. About Children. Bliss Carman, et al., eds. 1904. The World's Best Poetry. I. Of Home: of Friendship

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume I. Of Home: of Friendship. 1904.

Poems of Home: I. About Children

Silent Baby

Ellen Bartlett Currier


THE BABY sits in her cradle,
Watching the world go round,
Enrapt in a mystical silence,
Amid all the tumult of sound.
She must be akin to the flowers,	5
For no one has heard
A whispered word
From this silent baby of ours.

Wondering, she looks at the children,
As they merrily laughing pass,	10
And smiles o’er her face go rippling,
Like sunshine over the grass
And into the heart of the flowers;
But never a word
Has yet been heard	15
From this silent darling of ours.

Has she a wonderful wisdom,
Of unspoken knowledge a store,
Hid away from all curious eyes,
Like the mysterious lore	20
Of the bees and the birds and the flowers?
Is this why no word
Has ever been heard
From this silent baby of ours?

Ah, baby, from out your blue eyes	25
The angel of silence is smiling,—
Though silvern hereafter your speech,
Your silence is golden,—beguiling
All hearts to this darling of ours,
Who speaks not a word	30
Of all she has heard,
Like the birds, the bees, and the flowers.