C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Epitaph on a Child

THIS little seed of life and love

Just lent us for a day,

Came like a blessing from above,—

Passed like a dream away.

And when we garnered in the earth

The foison that was ours,

We felt that burial was but birth

To spirits, as to flowers.

And still that benediction stays,

Although its angel passed;

Dear God! thy ways, if bitter ways,

We learn to love at last.

But for the dream,—it broke indeed,

Yet still great comfort gives:

What was a dream is now our creed,—

We know our darling lives.