Small Tableaux By the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] |
ON SEEING A CHILD BLUSH ON HIS FIRST VIEW OF A CORPSE.
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110
ON SEEING A CHILD BLUSH ON HIS FIRST VIEW OF A CORPSE.
'Tis good our earliest sympathies to trace!And I would muse upon a little thing;
What brought the blush into that infant's face
When first confronted with the rueful king?
He boldly came—what made his courage less?
A signal for the heart to beat less free
Are all imperial presences, and he
Was awed by Death's consummate kingliness;
A strange bewildered look of shame he wore;
'Twas the first mortal hint that crossed the lad;
He feared the stranger, though he knew no more,
Surmising and surprised, but, most, afraid,
As Crusoe, wandering on the desert shore,
Saw but an alien footmark and was sad!
Small Tableaux | ||