Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Innocencies (1905). I. The Dead ChildKatharine Tynan Hinkson (18611931)
T
Ere he was born, alas!
Never upon his hapless head
The saving water was.
They laid the precious clay
That will not rise in any year
Nor on the Judgment Day.
Her tears fell down like rain
For the small son she might not know,
Whom she had borne in pain.
Her tears they burned like fire
For the small wandering soul cast out
That was our Lord’s desire.
Past Crios-na-Lanna dark,
She heard the sheep and the sheep-bell
And many a happy lark.
The sheep cropped, well content;
The little grave without a cross
Cried to her as she went.
But drew the water clear.
Is that a new-born babe that cries,
Or straying lambkin near?
That leaves the churchyard sod?
A little lamb all undefiled
And like the Lamb of God;
With tender soft alarms;
O is it lamb or is it child
That bleats within her arms?
That pushes at her breast?
A lamb that sought its straying dam
And has come home to rest.
The sheep browse safe from harms:
One little lamb has left the flock
And leaped into her arms.
At morning-tide and even,
The hungry heart has found its own,
The mother is in heaven.