University of Virginia Library

A MOTHER'S SOLACE.

My little darling seems to me
Lying here dead upon my knee:
I know it is not so—that I
Am dead as much as she can die.
Her hair in many a curl that lies,
Would grow no nearer to her eyes
That any sight of mine could know,
Though I kept her always lying so.

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Her hands would seem like a snowy cross,
One on the other, and I her loss
Would mourn with tears, though while they fell
I knew she was alive and well.
So lay this clay that seems to be
My little darling, from my knee:
The life she lives is too divine
To be interpreted to mine.
My senses shut me in their cell—
She is outside, alive and well,—
I am sinful, she is sinless, I
Am dying—she has ceased to die.
The love that made her thus to be
Is more than mine is, therefore she
Needs me not, or I need not her—
Love, so loving her, could not err.