"And Jesu called a little child unto him."
MATT. xviii. 2.
Oh, my blossom, my darling, whose dimpled hands are cold!
Oh, my baby, my treasure, laid under the green mould!
Earth pressed on thy closed eyelids, and on thy sunny hair,
And folded hands, and smiling lips, so exquisitely fair.
Cold and dark are the night dews around thy grassy bed,
Instead of warm and loving arms beneath thy sunny head;
Oh, my blossom, my darling, the long nights through, awake,
I stretch my empty arms for thee,--my heart--my heart will break.
The autumn leaves are falling ungathered on the hill,
The soft October sun is bright, but the little hands are still;
And the little feet that chased them as frolicksome and light,
Have lain beneath them--can it be?--a whole day and a night.
The autumn winds will sigh and moan; the dreary, dreary rain
Will drench thy lowly pillow, sweet, with tears like mine in vain;
And weary, weary months drag on, and long years stretch before,
Whilst thou to me, my beautiful, returnest nevermore.
Beyond our earthly vision--beyond the burial sod,
Where the palm trees and the amaranths grow on the hills of God,
Oh, golden gates, that stand within the holy, heavenly place,
Open for me but a little, that I may behold her face.
Open for me but a little, that I may touch her hand,
And hear her sing the hymn she loved about "The Promised Land."
Oh, my blossom! Oh, my darling! though it be but in a dream,
Speak to me,--I watch--I listen,--speak to me across the stream.
Kneeling--praying at the threshold--day and night, and night and day,
When I rise with heavy eyelids--when I kneel at night to pray--
Still I wait to catch the far-off music of they starry hymn,
Till I hear the voice that called thee bid me rise and enter in.