Miscellaneous Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

She was to me a consecrated thing,
Sever'd from all that grows upon the heart
Of ordinary life, and set apart,
As is the Star, that in the Western sky
Amid sidereal splendours of its own,
A beauteous palace builds, remote from all,
And unapproachable, yet wanting not
Companionship, so sent, divine.—I thought
A Spirit still was with her, as she went,
Slept by her side, knelt by her at her prayer,
Keeping her sacred from the common breath
Of earth; as one that from its native clime
Had stray'd into another element
Of grosser being. So this thing of love,

This child in her mysterious birth, was sent
Among us. Where the gentle creature mov'd,
Love followed, mixt with wonder; and fear came,
That one so young, so fair, should disappear,
Like to a beauteous shadow gliding by,
Then lost in darkness.—So she pass'd away
By that sweet Spirit led—that with her went,
The dear companion of her life,—I saw
Ever with smile ineffable it look'd
Upon the child, nor briefest absence bore;
For, as the last pale leaf of autumn fades,
Prophetic of its end, so these two friends
Must journey now together,—never more
Within these transitory scenes be found
At early morn, or eve, or when reclined
Beneath the noonday shadows—so they stood
List'ning the voice divine, that to them came,
Bringing its high commission from the skies;
And they lay down together, side by side,
In robes of saintly lustre—slept, not died.
The young, the pure, the good:—they cannot die.
They pass from earth.—Life meets them in the sky.

St. Matthew xviii. 10. See the note of Grotius. Petavius de Angelis and St. Jerome, quoted by Whitby, held, that each of these little ones had an angel delegated to them from their birth. See Wetstein's notes on the passage in his edition. Those who may not agree in the truth of the doctrine, will acknowledge the tender piety of the feeling conveyed in it.