| I SAW wherein the shroud did lurk | |
| A curious frame of Nature's work; | |
| A flow'ret crushèd in the bud, | |
| A nameless piece of babyhood, | |
| Was in her cradle-coffin lying; | 5 |
| Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: | |
| So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb | |
| For darker closets of the tomb! | |
| She did but ope an eye, and put | |
| A clear beam forth, then straight up shut | 10 |
| For the long dark: ne'er more to see | |
| Through glasses of mortality. | |
| Riddle of destiny, who can show | |
| What thy short visit meant, or know | |
| What thy errand here below? | 15 |
| Shall we say, that Nature blind | |
| Check'd her hand, and changed her mind | |
| Just when she had exactly wrought | |
| A finish'd pattern without fault? | |
| Could she flag, or could she tire, | 20 |
| Or lack'd she the Promethean fire | |
| (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) | |
| That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? | |
| Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure | |
| Life of health, and days mature— | 25 |
| Woman's self in miniature! | |
| Limbs so fair, they might supply | |
| (Themselves now but cold imagery) | |
| The sculptor to make Beauty by. | |
| Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry | 30 |
| That babe or mother, one must die; | |
| So in mercy left the stock | |
| And cut the branch—to save the shock | |
| Of young years widow'd, and the pain | |
| When single state comes back again | 35 |
| To the lone man who, reft of wife, | |
| Thenceforward drags a maimèd life? | |
| The economy of Heaven is dark, | |
| And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark | |
| Why human buds, like this, should fall, | 40 |
| More brief than fly ephemeral | |
| That has his day; while shrivell'd crones | |
| Stiffen with age to stocks and stones, | |
| And crabbèd use the conscience sears | |
| In sinners of an hundred years. | 45 |
| —Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, | |
| Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss. | |
| Rites, which custom does impose, | |
| Silver bells, and baby clothes; | |
| Coral redder than those lips | 50 |
| Which pale death did late eclipse; | |
| Music framed for infants' glee, | |
| Whistle never tuned for thee,— | |
| Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, | |
| Loving hearts were they which gave them. | 55 |
| Let not one be missing; nurse, | |
| See them laid upon the hearse | |
| Of infant slain by doom perverse. | |
| Why should kings and nobles have | |
| Pictured trophies to their grave, | 60 |
| And we, churls, to thee deny | |
| Thy pretty toys with thee to lie— | |
| A more harmless vanity? | |
| |
