Eonchs of ruby. A Gift of Love :: :: University of Virginia Library

AGNUS;

OR, THE LITTLE PET LAMB.

A PASTORAL.

“Feed my Lambs.”—
Christ's Charge to Peter.

I.

I never shall forget the day
I went to see sweet Alice Gray—
The little lamb that lived half way
To Heaven above—the child of May.
For near the path that led me by
The Plumtrees, on the ground did lie
A little lamb whose child-like cry
Told it had wandered there to die.

II.

Its mother wandering from the fold
When it was only three days old,
Was found upon the open wold,
Dead—dying of the bitter cold.
All day along the deep ravine,
Beside the rill that rolled between
Two sloping hills of emerald green,
Its little tiny tracks were seen.

III.

All night upon the emerald moss
That did the old gray rocks emboss,
Beside the stream it could not cross—
It lay lamenting its great loss!
In pale cold swoon, with dew bedight,
Low in the Moon's soft arms of light,
This lily lay in beauty bright
Snowing her whiteness on the night.

IV.

For as the little dappled Fawn,
Out of the lily-jeweled lawn,
At daybreak, eyes the milky Swan
Floating upon the Lake at dawn—
So did she from the emerald lea
Of this dark life gaze silently
At lambs beneath the Big Oak tree,
Sporting in joyful jubilee.

V.

Thus all day long adown the Vale
Vocal with her eternal wail,
She wandered sighing out her tale
Upon the suckle-scented gale.
Sometimes amid the verdant bowers,
Attended by the joyful Hours,
She scattered dew from off the flowers
Down on her limbs in pearly showers.

VI.

Thus orphaned on the dewy mead,
Self-exiled in her utmost need,
A weary, weary life indeed
Did she among the lilies lead

At noontide, with the wild Gazelles,
Amid the flowery Asphodels,
She learnt to drink from dewy wells
That fountained in the lily-bells.

VII.

The Fawn may seek the mountain Doe—
Down from the Hills may leap the Roe
To where the saintly lilies blow
All night upon the Vales below;
The amorous Doe may come again
Back to the Isles of Jasper Cane;
But for her mother, Death has slain,
She all night long shall wait in vain!

VIII.

For three long months in bitter cold,
With child-like plaint, it meekly told
Its sorrows to the snowy fold
That fleeced all night the open wold.
At midnight by the purling rill
That carolled down the echoing Hill,
She heard the plaintive Whippoorwill
Beg to be whipt—keeps begging still.

IX.

I took it from the place it lay,
And bore it to sweet Alice Gray—
The little Lamb that lived half way
To Heaven above—the Child of May.
It never, from the first, was wild,
But followed her like some sweet child,
With artless innocence so mild,
As meek as it was undefiled.

X.

Then in an ocean of green wheat
I placed it, that it there might eat,
Where, wading with its snowy feet,
Its happiness seemed now complete.
But how I loved that little lamb,
That played at evening in the calm
With Alice on sweet beds of balm—
Is only known to the I Am.

XI.

Although it lived till it was grown,
Its fellows it would never own—
Forgetting not the kindness shown
To it by me when left alone.
One day, I turned it out to see
If it would keep the company
Of other lambs—when, instantly,
It left them, running back to me.

XII.

Thus, humanized, it drew content
From those that Nature never meant
To be its partners, when she sent
It in this world where life is spent.
For never, till its dying day,
Did it the full-grown sheep betray;
It was so like sweet Alice Gray,
Its lambhood never passed away.

XIII.

One day, to please the love divine
Of my dear sister Adaline—
Whose spirit now in Heaven doth shine!
I made her, out of new white-pine,

A little waggon with four wheels,
And, harnessing the lamb, with peals
Of laughter ringing at my heels,
I drove her all about the fields.

XIV.

The sheep, with heads uplifted, stared,
As if they thought it were too hard
To be from freedom thus debarred—
Pulling her all about the yard.
Thus did I while the time away
With my dear little Alice Gray—
The little Lamb that lived half way
To Heaven above—the Child of May.

XV.

When it got hungry, as is so
With little lambs on earth below—
I made my little brother go
And steal some bread—his name was Joe.
So, when my joy was most complete,
I called it from the field of wheat;
It ran to me with silver feet,
As if it did its mother meet.

XVI.

And while it stood there by my side,
A rope around its neck I tied,
Expecting soon, with joyful pride,
To take my sister out to ride.
Then, rubbing it upon the head,
Thus to myself I softly said,
“Wait till I get some crumbs of bread”—
When I got back, the lamb was dead!

XVII.

The cord got tangled round its neck
While it was tethered to the stake:
Finding it never more would wake,
I thought my very heart would break!
I buried it deep in the clay,
And went to tell sweet Alice Gray;
The little Lamb that lived half way
To Heaven above—cried all that day.