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Mundi et Cordis

De Rebus Sempiternis et Temporariis: Carmina. Poems and Sonnets. By Thomas Wade
  
  

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 I. 
 II. 
expand sectionIII. 
 IV. 
IV. THE BIRD AND CHILD.
 V. 
 VI. 
 VII. 
 VIII. 
 IX. 


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IV. THE BIRD AND CHILD.

1

A Lady with an eye most mild
And lips as beautiful as closing flowers
Was the young mother of a child
Whose prattle made the pastime of her hours.

2

She in a cottage dwelt, whose thatch
Was oft the perch of a melodious bird,
Which seem'd that infant's glee to watch,
And piped sweet songs whene'er its voice was heard.

3

Death touch'd the child, that it was dying,
And by it the pale mother moaning lay;
And the bird ever had been flying
Around the thatch, but voiceless all the day.

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4

And when the gentle infant died,
Ere scarce the breath from its blue lips was gone,
The bird trill'd one brief song in pride—
Flew far, and never to return was known.

5

The mother sorrow'd, and went mad—
And often in her phrensy this would say:—
“It is the bird that makes me sad,
“For with my sweet child's soul it flew away.”