BABE DYING IN ITS MOTHER'S ABSENCE.
He lay 'tween life and death.
The priestly hand
Shed the baptismal water on his brow,
While earnestly a solemn tone besought
A heavenly place for that departing soul,
In Jesus' name.
The eye lay heavily
And lustreless beneath the half-closed lids,
But the small fingers all spasmodic thrill'd
Within the nurse's clasp.
She was not there
Who nurtured that fair boy, and day by day
Mark'd his smooth limbs to fuller roundness grow,
And garner'd up each ringing, gleeful shout,
Like music in her heart. She was not there.
Had she but known his peril, what could stay
The rushing traveller? Not the mountains steep,
Nor swollen floods, nor midnight's blackest shade,
Nor wildest storm. Or had one darken'd dream,
Mid her fond intercourse with joyous friends,
Bore his changed image, not with sport and smile,
But sleepless, starting from his fever'd bed,
The pearly teeth gnash'd strongly, and the tongue,
Untrain'd to language, moaning out his grief;
Or had she seen him from his favourite cup
Still force the spoon away, till his fair lip,
So like a rosebud, sallow grew, and thin,
