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i WHAT wast thou, little baby, that art dead— | |
| A one-day’s blossom that the hoar-frost nips? | |
| A bee that ’s crusht, the first bright day it sips? | |
| A small dropt gem that in the earth we tread? | |
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| Or cherub’s smiling gold-encircled head, | 5 |
| That Death from out Life’s painted missal rips? | |
| Or murmured prayer that barely reached the lips? | |
| Or sonnet’s fair first line—the rest unsaid? | |
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| Oh, ’tis not hard to find what thou wast like; | |
| The world is full of fair unfinished things | 10 |
| That vanish like a dawn-admonished elf. | |
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| Life teems with opening forms for Death to strike; | |
| The woods are full of unfledged broken wings; | |
| Enough for us, thou wast thy baby self. | |
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ii Lo, through the open window of the room | 15 |
| That was her nursery, a small bright spark | |
| Comes wandering in, as falls the summer dark, | |
| And with a measured flight explores the gloom. | |
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| As if it sought, among the things that loom | |
| Vague in the dusk, for some familiar mark, | 20 |
| And like a light on some wee unseen bark, | |
| It tacks in search of who knows what or whom. | |
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| I know ’tis but a fire-fly; yet its flight, | |
| So straight, so measured, round the empty bed, | |
| Might be a little soul’s that night sets free; | 25 |
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| And as it nears, I feel my heart grow tight | |
| With something like a superstitious dread, | |
| And watch it breathless, lest it should be she. | |
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