Amenophis and Other Poems Sacred and Secular :: :: University of Virginia Library

Dear little Baby day by day
We watch'd as on the bed it lay;
And oft its eyes it open'd wide,
And smiled to see us at its side:—
The clothes are on the empty bed;
But where is little baby fled?

Its limbs were growing long and fine,
Its hands put out to clasp and twine;
The lips began to coo and call;
It sat upright and wish'd to crawl;
And brighter daily round its head
The golden hair like sunrise spread.

When first within the cot it lay,
We ask'd if it had come to stay;
And scream'd for joy to hear them tell
'Twas sent from God with us to dwell,
And play about till it was grown,
And be our very very own.

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And when its eyes were sunk and dim,
And wasting seized each tiny limb,
We nursed it on our knees all day,
And begg'd it not to go away:
It moved its head and faintly cried,
And then lay still and sigh'd and sigh'd.

And now we cry and look in vain,
And cannot see it here again:—
The cot is white and still and bare,
But baby smiles and sings elsewhere;
Among God's Angels bright and dear:
Yet not more Angel there than here.