Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Elizabeth OakesSmith

210 From “The Sinless Child”

HER ways were gentle while a babe,

With calm and tranquil eye,

That turned instinctively to seek

The blueness of the sky.

A holy smile was on her lip

Whenever sleep was there;

She slept, as sleeps the blossom, hushed

Amid the silent air.

And ere she left with tottling steps

The low-roofed cottage door,

The beetle and the cricket loved

The young child on the floor;

For every insect dwelt secure

Where little Eva played,

And piped for her its blithest song

When she in greenwood strayed.

With wing of gauze and mailëd coat

They gathered round her feet,

Rejoiced, as are all gladsome things,

A truthful soul to greet.

They taught her infant lips to sing

With them a hymn of praise,

The song that in the woods is heard,

Through the long summer days.

And everywhere the child was traced

By snatches of wild song

That marked her feet along the vale

Or hillside, fleet and strong.

She knew the haunts of every bird—

Where bloomed the sheltered flower,

So sheltered that the searching frost

Might scarcely find its bower.

No loneliness young Eva knew,

Though playmates she had none:

Such sweet companionship was hers,

She could not be alone;

For everything in earth or sky

Caressed the little child,—

The joyous bird upon the wing,

The blossom in the wild.

Much dwelt she on the green hill-side,

And under forest tree;

Beside the running, babbling brook,

Where lithe trout sported free.

She saw them dart, like stringëd gems,

Where the tangled roots were deep,

And learned that love forevermore

The heart will joyful keep.

She loved all simple flowers that spring

In grove or sunlit dell,

And of each streak and varied hue

Would pretty meanings tell.

For her a language was impressed

On every leaf that grew,

And lines revealing brighter worlds

That seraph fingers drew.

The opening bud that lightly swung

Upon the dewy air,

Moved in its very sportiveness

Beneath angelic care;

She saw that pearly fingers oped

Each curved and painted leaf,

And where the canker-worm had been

Were looks of angel grief.

Each tiny leaf became a scroll

Inscribed with holy truth,

A lesson that around the heart

Should keep the dew of youth,

Bright missals from angelic throngs

In every byway left:—

How were the earth of glory shorn,

Were it of flowers bereft!

Young Eva said all noisome weeds

Would pass from earth away,

When virtue in the human heart

Held its predestined sway.

Exalted thoughts were always hers,

Some deemed them strange and wild;

And hence, in all the hamlets round,

Her name of Sinless Child.