Verses To The Memory Of A Child

Our gentle Charles has pass'd away
From earth's short bondage free,
And left to us its leaden day
And mist-enshrouded sea.


Here, by the ocean's terraced side,
Sweet hours of hope were known,
When first the triumph of its tide
Seem'd omen of our own.


That eager joy the sea-breeze gave,
When first it raised his hair,
Sunk with each day's retiring wave,
Beyond the reach of prayer.


The sun-blink that through drizzling mist,
To flickering hope akin,
Lone waves with feeble fondness kiss'd,
No smile as faint can win;


Yet not in vain with radiance weak
The heavenly stranger gleams--
Not of the world it lights to speak,
But that from whence it streams.


That world our patient sufferer sought,
Serene with pitying eyes,
As if his mounting spirit caught
The wisdom of the skies.


With boundless love it look'd abroad
For one bright moment given,
Shone with a loveliness that awed,
And quiver'd into Heaven.


A year made slow by care and toil
Has paced its weary round,
Since death enrich'd with kindred spoil
The snow-clad, frost-ribb'd ground.


Then Lamb, with whose endearing name
Our boy we proudly graced,
Shrank from the warmth of sweeter fame
Than ever bard embraced.


Still 'twas a mournful joy to think
Our darling might supply,
For years to us, a living link
With name that cannot die.


And though such fancy gleam no more
On earthly sorrow's night,
Truth's nobler torch unveils the shore
Which lends to both its light.


The nurseling there that hand may take
None ever grasp'd in vain,
And smiles of well-known sweetness wake,
Without their tinge of pain.


Though, 'twixt the child and childlike bard
Late seem'd distinction wide,
They now may trace, in Heaven's regard,
How near they were allied.


Within the infant's ample brow
Blythe fancies lay unfurl'd,
Which all uncrush'd may open now
To charm a sinless world.


Though the soft spirit of those eyes
Might ne'er with Lamb's compete--
Ne'er sparkle with a wit as wise,
Or melt in tears, as sweet,


The nurseling's unforgotten look
A kindred love reveals,
With his who never friend forsook,
Or hurt a thing that feels.


In thought profound, in wildest glee,
In sorrow's lengthening range,
His guileless soul of infancy
Endured no spot or change.


From traits of each our love receives
For comfort nobler scope;
While light which childlike genius leaves
Confirms the infant's hope:


And in that hope with sweetness fraught
Be aching hearts beguiled,
To blend in one delightful thought
The Poet and the Child.