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Home  »  Specimens of American Poetry  »  Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865)

Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.

By Death of an Infant

Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865)

DEATH found strange beauty on that cherub brow,

And dash’d it out. There was a tint of rose

On cheek and lip;—he touch’d the veins with ice,

And the rose faded.—Forth from those blue eyes

There spoke a wishful tenderness,—a doubt

Whether to grieve or sleep, which Innocence

Alone can wear. With ruthless haste he bound

The silken fringes of their curtaining lids

For ever. There had been a murmuring sound

With which the babe would claim its mother’s ear,

Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set

His seal of silence. But there beam’d a smile

So fix’d and holy from that marble brow,—

Death gazed and left it there;—he dared not steal

The signet-ring of heaven.