Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Coventry Patmore (1823–1896)The Toys
| MY little son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes, | |
| And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, | |
| Having my law the seventh time disobey’d, | |
| I struck him, and dismiss’d | |
| With hard words and unkiss’d, | 5 |
| His mother, who was patient, being dead. | |
| Then fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, | |
| I visited his bed, | |
| But found him slumbering deep, | |
| With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet | 10 |
| From his late sobbing wet, | |
| And I with moan, | |
| Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; | |
| For, on a table drawn beside his head, | |
| He had put, within his reach, | 15 |
| A box of counters, and a red-vein’d stone, | |
| A piece of glass abraded by the beach, | |
| And six or seven shells, | |
| A bottle with bluebells, | |
| And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, | 20 |
| To comfort his sad heart. | |
| So when that night I pray’d | |
| To God, I wept, and said:— | |
| Ah, when at last we lie with trancèd breath, | |
| Not vexing Thee in death, | 25 |
| And Thou rememberest of what toys | |
| We made our joys, | |
| How weakly understood | |
| Thy great commanded good, | |
| Then Fatherly not less | 30 |
| Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, | |
| Thou’lt leave Thy wrath and say, | |
| “I will be sorry for their childishness.” | |