Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/Babe dying in its Mother's Absence
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,
How had she burst away to see him die,
Or die with him.
But ah, too late! too late!
One bitter gasp upon a hireling's breast,
And all is o'er! Methought some lingering tie
Held him to earth. What did thy pale hand seek
With such a quivering eagerness, poor babe?
Thine absent mother? Didst thou long to feel
Her kiss upon thine eyelids, or her breath
Parting the curls, and passing up to heaven
A winged prayer?
Would that I could forget
The weeping of that mother, when she takes
That ice-cold body to her bursting heart;
Or even for that, too late, doth frantic press
The pitying sexton for one last, drear sight
Of her lost darling, in his desolate couch
Most desolate, amid the mouldering dead.
Mothers! who, bending o'er your cradled charge,
Feel an unspoken love, cling to his side
As the soul weds the clay. Can the whole earth,
With all its pageantry, the wandering glance
Scanning its proudest climes, buy one blest hour
Like his confiding slumber in your arms?
Ye answer, No.
So take your priceless meed,
The first young love of innocence, the smile
Singling you out from all the world beside;
And if, amid this hallow'd ministry,
Heaven's messenger should claim the unstain'd soul,
Yours be the hand to give it back to God.