Small Tableaux By the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] |
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ON SEEING A CHILD BLUSH ON HIS FIRST VIEW OF A CORPSE.
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ON SEEING A CHILD BLUSH ON HIS FIRST VIEW OF A CORPSE.
'Tis good our earliest sympathies to trace!And I would muse upon a little thing;
What brought the blush into that infant's face
When first confronted with the rueful king?
He boldly came—what made his courage less?
A signal for the heart to beat less free
Are all imperial presences, and he
Was awed by Death's consummate kingliness;
A strange bewildered look of shame he wore;
'Twas the first mortal hint that crossed the lad;
He feared the stranger, though he knew no more,
Surmising and surprised, but, most, afraid,
As Crusoe, wandering on the desert shore,
Saw but an alien footmark and was sad!
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