Poems of sentiment :: :: University of Virginia Library

When from our mortal vision
Grown men and women go,
To sail strange fields Elysian
And know what spirits know,
I think of them as tourists,
In some sun-gilded clime,
'Mong happy sights and dear delights
We all shall find, in time.

But when a child goes yonder
And leaves its mother here,
Its little feet must wander,
It seems to me, in fear.
What paths of Eden beauty
What scenes of peace and rest
Can bring content to one who went
Forth from a mother's breast.

115

In palace gardens, lonely,
A little child will roam,
And weep for pleasures only
Found in its humble home—
It is not won by splendor,
Nor bought by costly toys,
To hide from harm on mother's arm
Makes all its sum of joys.

It must be when the baby
Goes journeying off alone,
Some angel (Mary may be),
Adopts it for her own.
Yet when a child is taken
Whose mother stays below
With weeping eyes, through Paradise,
I seem to see it go.

With troops of angels trying
To drive away its fear,
I seem to hear it crying

116

“I want my mamma here.”
I do not court the fancy,
It is not based on doubt,
It is a thought that comes unsought
When baby souls sail out.