Poems and Essays By the late William Caldwell Roscoe. (Edited with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, Richard Holt Hutton) |
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A CHRISTMAS SONNET. |
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 | Poems and Essays |  |
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A CHRISTMAS SONNET.
When beauty-loving Nature hath conceived,And of a child of bliss been brought to bed,
Whose grace makes poor the baby Spring upheaved
Upon reluctant Winter's icy head;
When in delight her darling hath been bred,
And mixed in her, as time is mixed with fleetness,
Are whiteness, joy, and truthfulness, and sweetness;—
What needs she more to seek the happy dead?
Put off, unwilling mother, put away
Those radiant sweeping garments of her joys.
No; that warm-clasping comfort must not stay;
Here are sharp waters of a heavenly sorrow.
Wash, child of Nature; weep you for those joys;
Here are the robes of faithfulness,—put on, and die to-morrow!
1850.
| Poems and Essays | |