Sacred Meditations and Moral Themes In Verse :: :: University of Virginia Library

Something divine about an Infant seems
To them, who watch it in that holy light
Of meaning, caught from those celestial words
Of Christ,—“Forbid them not, but let them come!”
Fresh buds of Being! beautiful as frail,
Types of that Kingdom which our Souls profess
To enter! Symbols of that docile love
And meek compliancy of creed and mind
Which Heaven hath canonized, and for its own
Acknowledged,—well may thoughtful Hearts perceive
A mystery, beyond mere nature's law,
Around them girdled like a moral zone.

And who can wonder (if we love to trace
The faint beginning of whatever lives)
That o'er an infant, innocently decked
With charms more delicate than dewy gleams
Dropt on pale flowers,—the serious Mind of man
Can ponder? Or, with presage mildly sad,

The colour of its coming years predict,
When o'er that brow, with sunny whiteness clothed,
Smooth as the cheek of Morning,—Time will stamp
His wrinkling traces; and the purple bloom
Of youth's gay spirit, like stern winter's blight
On the bowed head of hoary Age becomes!

Yes! eloquent, and touching more than tears,
These 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 chartered 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 shooting 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 mind come forth,
The buds and petals of the soul expand
Day after day, beneath a fostering 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
An object apt by corresponding law arranged,—
Philosophy may there, with reverence, learn,
As grows the virgin intellect of youth
Familiar with all Forms, Effects, and moods
Of nature's might, or Majesty, of scenes.
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.—
And, oh! fond mothers! whose mysterious hearts
Are finely strung with such electric chords
Of feeling, that a single touch, a tone
From those ye fondle, some responsive thrill
Awakens,—when at night, a last long look
That almost clings around the Form it eyes,
Ye take of slumbering Infancy, whose cheeks
Lie softly pillowed on the rounded arm,

Rosy, and radiant with their dimpling sleep;—
Well may ye waft upon some wingéd prayer
A grateful anthem to your Lord enthroned,
Who, once an Infant on his mother's knee,
Not in His glory, childhood's life forgets:
For He, while systems, suns, and worlds
Hang on His will, and by His arm perform
Their functions, in all matter, space, and time,—
Can hear the patter of an infant's foot,
List to the beating of a mother's heart,
And seal the eyelid of a babe at rest.

But, like the lustre of a broken dream,
How soon the fairy grace of morning life
Melts from the growing child! Corruptive airs
Breathed from an atmosphere where sin is bred,
Around them their contaminating spell
Exhale; and Custom with its hateful load
Of mean observances, and petty rites,
Bend into dust these instincts of the skies
In the pure heart of genuine childhood seen,
And, so enchanting!—Then comes artful Trick,
With forced Appearance, and a feeling veiled,
When fashion's creed or folly's plea forbids
A free expression. These with blending force
The sweet integrities of youth assail
For ever; mar the delicacy of mind,

And from the power intact of Conscience take
Its holy edge, and soon the child impress
With the coarse features of corrupted man.
And, add to this, how omnipresent sin,
That from the womb of being, to our grave
Infects our nature with a fiendish blight,—
Will act on passion earthly, and desires
Malignant, base or mutinously warp'd
From virtue,—and, alas! how quick we find
The vestal bloom of Innocence depart!
Then, what remains of all that blesséd prime,
That blooming promise, which the fair-brow'd child
Of beauty gave in home's domestic bowers,—
Lisping God's love beside parental knees,
And seeming oft, as if the Saviour's arms
Had compassed them, and left a circling spell
Round his soft being!—Where, ah! where is gone
The unworn freshness of that fairy child?

But, yet on earth from genial heaven there come
Children, who, e'en though infancy enwrap
Its weakness round them,—thoughts beyond their years,
And feelings that in depth surpass the soul
Of elder Age to fathom,—oft possess:
Mournful they are, and soft in shape and mien;
Reserved and shy, as those retreating brooks

Which love to vanish from th' observer's gaze,
And find green shelter in the shading grass
Or waving sedges.—Such, who has not seen,
And round them felt a fascination float,
A nameless spell, subduingly empowered
To make stern Manhood be a child again?
A beaming mildness like the vesper star
Their glance reveals; or, in some pensive gaze,
Soft as blue skies, but far more exquisite,
A depth of sanctity there seems to dwell
Beyond corruption. Strangers lightly pass;
And by the semblance of a tiny form
Misguided,—rarely on the mind immense
Within it tabernacled, can pause to think.—
Yet, underneath yon little frame of flesh,
Something that shall outsoar the seraphim
Hereafter, as the price of Blood Divine,—
May be enshrined! And o'er that placid brow
Shades of high meaning, from the Spirit sent,
E'en as they rise, may well from Age mature
Challenge respect, and bid us wisely know,
Childhood has depth of inner life unseen,
Feelings profound, of purest birth unknown,
And sympathies of most unfathomed sway,—
Though stern Philosophy, or Reason's pride
Can mock, or misbelieve them—Souls they have
So visited with visionary gleams

Of God, and Truth; and by such love sublime
Sent from the glory of a purer world,
Are oft illumined,—Fancy might suspect
Such children were the exiles of the skies,
Prisoned in breathing flesh, awhile ordained
This earth to hallow; but at times, the sense
Of Home Immortal on their being rose,
And bade them with divine emotion thrill,
Though faltering tongue and feeble accent failed
What passed within, to body forth, or tell:
Then, nature only, with a shaded brow
And eye that glowed with melancholy gleams,
Betokened,—what a heaven-born spirit bears
When half remembering its ethereal birth!

Then, look not lightly on a pensive child,
Lest God be in it, gloriously at work!
And our Irreverence touch on truths, and powers
And principles, which round the Throne are dear
As holy.—Never may our hearts forget
That Heaven with infancy redeemed is full,—
Crowded with babes beyond the sunbeams bright
And countless! Forms of life that scarcely breathed
Earth's blighting air, and things of lovely mould
Which, ere they prattled, or with flowers could play,
Or to the lullaby of watching Love
Could hearken—back to God's own world were called;

And myriads, too, who learnt to lisp a prayer,
Bend the soft knee, and heave devotion's sigh,
Or carolled with a birdlike chant the psalms
Of David,—with the Church in Heaven are found:
For He who loved them, and on earth enwreathed
His arms around them, now in Glory wills
To hear their voices, and their souls array
With beauty, bright as elder Spirits wear.

But, oh! Thou Architect of heaven in man,
The Bible's Light, and inspiration's Lord,
Whose secret pulse of vitalizing power
The fitful breathings of the sovereign wind
Denote; Thou Finisher of works divine!
Under whose plastic wing creation took
Each form of grandeur, each affecting grace
That Art can copy, or Religion greet;
Thou in Thy might and mystery of love
A Temple in the soul of infancy
Hast deigned to build; and there, in blessed caim
And sanctity, Thy viewless glory shrined.

Called of the Lord!—'tis here a child begins
Beyond all manhood, when corrupt, to make
Associations bright with more than mortal beam!
For, if religion be imparted God,
And purchased grace, the Trinity applied,

Then, He whose palace fills Infinity,
(That great metropolis of glories all!)
Dwells in the spirit of a child renewed,
Nor scorns the mansion Love erecteth there.—
Here is the paradox which puzzles Sense,
Confounds cold Reason, and from sceptics draws
A sneer derisive. Children, in their forms
Minute, their broken words, their lisped assent,
And little ways of inexperienced life,
Are unto them, but what the senses grasp,
And nothing more!—beyond, 'tis mystic void,
Whence Fancy only can at times report
The wonders an ideal faith enacts.—
They hear them prattle, they behold them play,
And see them, measured by the scale of man's
Attainment,—but like shapes of helpless dust
By sparks of faint intelligence inspired.
Alas, poor infidel! thy pride exceeds
Canute's itself, which bade th' imperial sea
Take law and motion from his tyrant lip;
For thou, The Everlasting in His ways
Wouldst limit! and to boundless grace prescribe
Modes of appeal, and methods of display;
As if the mighty God were only Man
Made infinite, and out of reason formed!—
But while the scoffer of The Spirit's power
In childhood realized, with tongue of scorn

Blasphemes all grace within some infant shrined,—
Devouter students of His wonder-work
Celestial, from a sainted child can learn
Lessons of light; and from infantile lips
Meanings from heaven, mysteriously profound,
Delight to welcome:—for, their meekened souls
Remember Christ himself a cradled babe
On earth was found; and through that tender prime
Passed his Own life, whose consecrating track
Hath left a blessing wheresoe'er it came,
And made frail Childhood holy. Thus, the heart
In this exults, that in those budding minds
Where twice three summers scarce experience bring,
Tokens of God, and teachings most sublime
Are witnessed; while full oft some hoary saint
Whose pilgrimage hath been through pangs, and tears,
And windings dark through many a devious way—
Hangs mute with wonder, as some dying child
Warbles its young hosanna; or by faith sublimed
Beyond experience,—tells, with faltering tongue,
And eye that glistens with seraphic ray,
Of truths momentous; such as Rabbis heard
Astonished, when the Virgin-born revealed
Gleams of The God, beneath His veiling flesh!

And therefore, let maternal bosoms take
Home to bright welcome, what the Bible tells,—

How in the Temple, ere the mystic Lamp
Went out, that Hannah's God-devoted child
Woke from his slumber, by a call from Heaven:—
Oh! mother blest, who from the womb didst vow
The promised child, believing prayer obtained,
Forever to the Lord!—when Eli saw
How the deep spirit of devotion rocked
Thy nature, till thy moving lip betrayed
How worked the heart with more than spoken prayer
Could utter,—little did that old man dream
How near The Throne thy spirit had advanced!—
And, what a lesson are the proud ones taught
When, not for earthly wise, or worldly great,
For prophets, priests, or philosophic minds
The silence of Eternity was broke;
But, to a little child, in slumber bound,
The high revealings of the Heavens were made!
Voiceless the Word, and shut the Vision was
Through years of darkness; when, at last, behold!
Thrice in his ear, the consecrated boy
Felt a deep Voice his pregnant name pronounce,
Solemn, but yet with mortal accent toned;
And thrice to Eli, in sublime alarm,
Ran the woke child, as if himself had called.—
But soon The God, that dim-eyed Priest discerned,
Jehovah in his glowing face he read!
Then, on his lifted brow with reverence gazed;

And while the finger of the child was turned
Upward, from whence the Voice unearthly rolled
Its summons, —in that call The Lord he hailed
Truly, as if in Thunder, Fire, or Blast,
Down to the earth an Inspiration came.

Here may we pause to wonder, muse, and pray
Or cry, with feeling admiration fired,
“Ye mothers! do as noble Hannah did,
And to The Giver, consecrate the child.”
Here in live action doth the Bible show
Embodied, what the after word of Christ,
With soft rebuke to his Apostles spoke,—
How children, in simplicity of soul,
Are types incarnate of the heirs of Light;
And thus the sensual are profoundly taught
That purity beyond proud wisdom soars,
And out of nature lifts a little child
To rank majestic in the scale of Heaven!

An allusion to Copley's beautiful painting.