University of Virginia Library

GOD'S INFANTS.

Yes! eloquent, and touching more than tears,
Those incarnations of maternal dreams,—
Infants, by Beauty's plastic finger shaped,
Have ever been: in all their ways and moods
A winning power of unaffected grace
Poetic faith, or pious fancy, views.
Wild as the charter'd waves, which leap, and laugh
By sun and breeze rejoicingly inspired,
Till the air gladdens with the glowing life
They shed around them,—who their happy frame
Can mark; or listen to their laughing tones;
Behold their gambols, and the fairy gleams
Of mirth which sparkle from their restless eyes,
Nor feel his fondness to the centre moved
Beyond a mere emotion? But, to watch
The tendrils of the dawning mind come forth,
The buds and petals of the soul expand
Day after day, beneath a fost'ring care
And love devoted,—this Religion deeply loves!
How the Great Parent of the universe
The outward to the inner-world hath framed,
With finest harmony; and for each sense
Some region of appropriate joy secured,
Philosophy may there, with reverence, learn,
As grows the virgin-intellect of youth
Familiar with all forms, effects, and moods
Of Nature, in her majesty or might.
And, what a text on Providence we read
In the safe life of shielded Infancy!
For, who can count the multitude of Babes
That look more fragile than the silken clouds
Which bask upon the bosom of the Air
They brighten,—God's o'ershading Hand secures!
And number, if Arithmetic can reach
The total, what a host of tiny feet
Totter in safety o'er this troubled world!
Though all around them throng, and rage
Destructive Elements, whose faintest shock
Would strike an infant into pulseless clay.