Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844837. On a Dead Child
PERFECT little body, without fault or stain on thee, | |
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! | |
Though cold and stark and bare, | |
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. | |
Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer | 5 |
To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be | |
Thy father’s pride:—ah, he | |
Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger. | |
To me, as I move thee now in the last duty, | |
Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond; | 10 |
Startling my fancy fond | |
With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty. | |
Thy hand clasps, as ’twas wont, my finger, and holds it: | |
But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff; | |
Yet feels to my hand as if | 15 |
‘Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it. | |
So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,— | |
Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!— | |
Propping thy wise, sad head, | |
Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing. | 20 |
So quiet! doth the change content thee?—Death, whither hath he taken thee? | |
To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this? | |
The vision of which I miss, | |
Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and awaken thee? | |
Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us | 25 |
To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark, | |
Unwilling, alone we embark, | |
And the things we have seen and have known and have heard of, fail us. |