| Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829. | | | | Death of an Infant | | By Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) |
| | | DEATH found strange beauty on that cherub brow, | |
| And dash’d it out. There was a tint of rose | |
| On cheek and lip;—he touch’d the veins with ice, | |
| And the rose faded.—Forth from those blue eyes | |
| There spoke a wishful tenderness,—a doubt | 5 |
| Whether to grieve or sleep, which Innocence | |
| Alone can wear. With ruthless haste he bound | |
| The silken fringes of their curtaining lids | |
| For ever. There had been a murmuring sound | |
| With which the babe would claim its mother’s ear, | 10 |
| Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set | |
| His seal of silence. But there beam’d a smile | |
| So fix’d and holy from that marble brow,— | |
| Death gazed and left it there;—he dared not steal | |
| The signet-ring of heaven. | 15 | | | |
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