University of Virginia Library

Lying on thy little bed,
Still and pale, as thou wert dead;
On thy arm thy drooping head
Has sunk down wearily:
In a deep exhausted sleeping,
After tempest-floods of weeping,
Fall'n into the angels' keeping;
For no friend else is nigh.
Ever in the narrow room
Colder and colder falls the gloom;
The evening darkens, and the rain
Beats on the narrow lattice-pane;
And the one grey poplar, shaking
By the window, ever making
Mournful music to thy waking,
Rocks its shadow by.
All things round are bare and rough,
But thou art soft and young enough
For tenderer comforting and cheer
Than any that thou findest here,
Under the cold, strange sky.

Life has come on thee unawares,
In a cold flood of griefs and cares;
Troubled thou art and desolate
In mind and body, and estate,
And spent with misery.
In thy helpless softness thrown
Out upon the world alone;
Only faces all unknown,
To meet thee carelessly;
Stranger speech within thy ears,
Bread of exile and of tears;
And no memory of sweet years
To console thy pain;
And in thy heart-broken sorrow,
No good visions of to-morrow
Thy patience to sustain.
Prayers are darkly drowned in doubt,
And the heavens are blotted out
By the blinding rain:
In thy anguish left so lonely,
Is but one hope for thee only,
Never to wake again.
Thou sleepest softly now, and yet
Thy eyelashes are freshly wet,
And on thy cheeks two tears are set,
As if thy dreams could not forget:—
But who will care for these?
As they are so they must be,
No one will kiss them away for thee,
Lying there until they freeze.
All around thee golden-rare,
The heavy loosen'd rain of hair,
With a mantle royal-fair,
Enfoldeth thee to rest.
Soft young hands and fair of mould,
Small as a child's ten years old,
As white as snowflakes and as cold,
Are folded on thy breast;
Together passionately entwin'd,
As they had sought about to find
Some caress of tender kind,
And meeting none of sister or mother,
Are tightly clasp'd in one another
With yearning mournfullest:
Fingers not chisell'd out of stone,
But like white roses at sunrise blown,
Into that shape and sculpture grown,
By angel fingers prest.
Thy brows are calm at last in sleep,
But, haunted still with pain, they keep
A shadowy look, so dark and deep,
Whoso beholdeth can but weep,
But thou still slumberest.

The silent sadness of thy face
Thrills like a sighing through the place;
Yet thanks at least be for the grace
Of this hour's quiet breathing-space
Amid the waters wild.
Though thy young heart in its breaking
Sees it not, yet unforsaking
Christ o'er thee a hush is making
To give thee slumber mild:
He giveth His beloved sleep:
He loveth thee, poor child!