University of Virginia Library

THE TRAGEDY OF CHILDHOOD

Fairest leaves of autumn spread
To shroud with green these children dead;
Their early fate, their cruel doom,
Might well require a nobler tomb:
Alabaster might explain,
Pompous verse rehearse their pain.
Cherubs weeping stony tears,
Time with scythe and Fate with shears,
Slab of lapis, jasper border,
Columns of Corinthian order;
Let no meaner shrine be here
Than on the dust of cavalier.
Nay, they need no trophies high,
Grander in simplicity;
And their oft-repeated tale
Is never old and never stale.
All night long in evil case,
Thro' thorny green and forest space;
Up and down, and far and wide,
They wandered till they sank and died.
Pitying on a hazel bough,
Robin saw them sinking low.
Came the wren, the whitethroat came,
Came the bird of evil name;
Owl, and nuthatch, tit, and dove,
Singers of the dirge of love.
Will ye mourn them half as well
With the peal of muffled bell?
With the organ march of Death,
With the floated incense wreath,
Chant and candle, cross and stole,
As the misereres roll?
Here each tender baby lies
Shrined with richer obsequies:
Fairy leaves of aspen shed
Treasure round these children dead,
Leaves of oak, and sprays of rue,
Cypress branches, boughs of yew.
And they want no marble tomb,
Where we may inscribe their doom;
Where the Frost with icy fetters
Tears away the golden letters.
Where the rain rubs out the tale.
But their story shall not fail,
Shrined beyond the reach of chance
In golden childhood's first romance,
And on early Fancy's walls
Painted, where soft sunlight falls.