Chapter 3

When grace is given us ever to behold A child some sweet months old, Love, laying across our lips his finger, saith, Smiling, with bated breath, Hush! for the holiest thing that lives is here, And heaven's own heart how near! How dare we, that may gaze not on the sun, Gaze on this verier one? Heart, hold thy peace; eyes, be cast down for shame; Lips, breathe not yet its name. In heaven they know what name to call it; we, How should we know? For, see! The adorable sweet living marvellous Strange light that lightens us Who gaze, desertless of such glorious grace, Full in a babe's warm face! All roses that the morning rears are nought, All stars not worth a thought, Set this one star against them, or suppose As rival this one rose. What price could pay with earth's whole weight of gold One least flushed roseleaf's fold Of all this dimpling store of smiles that shine From each warm curve and line, Each charm of flower-sweet flesh, to reillume The dappled rose-red bloom Of all its dainty body, honey-sweet Clenched hands and curled-up feet, That on the roses of the dawn have trod As they came down from God, And keep the flush and colour that the sky Takes when the sun comes nigh, And keep the likeness of the smile their grace Evoked on God's own face When, seeing this work of his most heavenly mood, He saw that it was good? For all its warm sweet body seems one smile, And mere men's love too vile To meet it, or with eyes that worship dims Read o'er the little limbs, Read all the book of all their beauties o'er, Rejoice, revere, adore, Bow down and worship each delight in turn, Laugh, wonder, yield, and yearn. But when our trembling kisses dare, yet dread, Even to draw nigh its head, And touch, and scarce with touch or breath surprise Its mild miraculous eyes Out of their viewless vision--O, what then, What may be said of men? What speech may name a new-born child? what word Earth ever spake or heard? The best men's tongue that ever glory knew Called that a drop of dew Which from the breathing creature's kindly womb Came forth in blameless bloom. We have no word, as had those men most high, To call a baby by. Rose, ruby, lily, pearl of stormless seas-- A better word than these, A better sign it was than flower or gem That love revealed to them: They knew that whence comes light or quickening flame, Thence only this thing came, And only might be likened of our love To somewhat born above, Not even to sweetest things dropped else on earth, Only to dew's own birth. Nor doubt we but their sense was heavenly true, Babe, when we gaze on you, A dew-drop out of heaven whose colours are More bright than sun or star, As now, ere watching love dare fear or hope, Lips, hands, and eyelids ope, And all your life is mixed with earthly leaven. O child, what news from heaven?

TWINS

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO W. M. R. AND L. R.

April, on whose wings Ride all gracious things, Like the star that brings All things good to man, Ere his light, that yet Makes the month shine, set, And fair May forget Whence her birth began,

Brings, as heart would choose, Sound of golden news, Bright as kindling dews When the dawn begins; Tidings clear as mirth, Sweet as air and earth Now that hail the birth, Twice thus blest, of twins.

In the lovely land Where with hand in hand Lovers wedded stand Other joys before Made your mixed life sweet: Now, as Time sees meet, Three glad blossoms greet Two glad blossoms more.

Fed with sun and dew, While your joys were new, First arose and grew One bright olive-shoot: Then a fair and fine Slip of warm-haired pine Felt the sweet sun shine On its leaf and fruit.

And it wore for mark Graven on the dark Beauty of its bark That the noblest name Worn in song of old By the king whose bold Hand had fast in hold All the flower of fame.

Then, with southern skies Flattered in her eyes, Which, in lovelier wise Yet, reflect their blue Brightened more, being bright Here with life's delight, And with love's live light Glorified anew,

Came, as fair as came One who bore her name (She that broke as flame From the swan-shell white), Crowned with tender hair Only, but more fair Than all queens that were Themes of oldworld fight,

Of your flowers the third Bud, or new-fledged bird In your hearts' nest heard Murmuring like a dove Bright as those that drew Over waves where blew No loud wind the blue Heaven-hued car of love.

Not the glorious grace Even of that one face Potent to displace All the towers of Troy Surely shone more clear Once with childlike cheer Than this child's face here Now with living joy.

After these again Here in April's train Breaks the bloom of twain Blossoms in one birth For a crown of May On the front of day When he takes his way Over heaven and earth.

Half a heavenly thing Given from heaven to Spring By the sun her king, Half a tender toy, Seems a child of curl Yet too soft to twirl; Seems the flower-sweet girl By the flower-bright boy.

All the kind gods' grace, All their love, embrace Ever either face, Ever brood above them: All soft wings of hours Screen them as with flowers From all beams and showers: All life's seasons love them.

When the dews of sleep Falling lightliest keep Eyes too close to peep Forth and laugh off rest, Joy from face to feet Fill them, as is meet: Life to them be sweet As their mother's breast.

When those dews are dry, And in day's bright eye Looking full they lie Bright as rose and pearl, All returns of joy Pure of time's alloy Bless the rose-red boy, Guard the rose-white girl.

POSTSCRIPT

Friends, if I could take Half a note from Blake Or but one verse make Of the Conqueror's mine, Better than my best Song above your nest I would sing: the quest Now seems too divine.

_April 28, 1881._

THE SALT OF THE EARTH

If childhood were not in the world, But only men and women grown; No baby-locks in tendrils curled, No baby-blossoms blown;

Though men were stronger, women fairer, And nearer all delights in reach, And verse and music uttered rarer Tones of more godlike speech;

Though the utmost life of life's best hours Found, as it cannot now find, words; Though desert sands were sweet as flowers And flowers could sing like birds,

But children never heard them, never They felt a child's foot leap and run This were a drearier star than ever Yet looked upon the sun.

SEVEN YEARS OLD

I

Seven white roses on one tree, Seven white loaves of blameless leaven, Seven white sails on one soft sea, Seven white swans on one lake's lee, Seven white flowerlike stars in heaven, All are types unmeet to be For a birthday's crown of seven.

II

Not the radiance of the roses, Not the blessing of the bread, Not the breeze that ere day grows is Fresh for sails and swans, and closes Wings above the sun's grave spread, When the starshine on the snows is Sweet as sleep on sorrow shed.

III

Nothing sweetest, nothing best, Holds so good and sweet a treasure As the love wherewith once blest Joy grows holy, grief takes rest, Life, half tired with hours to measure, Fills his eyes and lips and breast With most light and breath of pleasure;

IV

As the rapture unpolluted, As the passion undefiled, By whose force all pains heart-rooted Are transfigured and transmuted, Recompensed and reconciled, Through the imperial, undisputed, Present godhead of a child.

V

Brown bright eyes and fair bright head, Worth a worthier crown than this is, Worth a worthier song instead, Sweet grave wise round mouth, full fed With the joy of love, whose bliss is More than mortal wine and bread, Lips whose words are sweet as kisses,

VI

Little hands so glad of giving, Little heart so glad of love, Little soul so glad of living, While the strong swift hours are weaving Light with darkness woven above, Time for mirth and time for grieving, Plume of raven and plume of dove,

VII

I can give you but a word Warm with love therein for leaven, But a song that falls unheard Yet on ears of sense unstirred Yet by song so far from heaven, Whence you came the brightest bird, Seven years since, of seven times seven.

EIGHT YEARS OLD

I

Sun, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears, Rise, let the time of year be May, Speak now the word that April hears, Let March have all his royal way; Bid all spring raise in winter's ears All tunes her children hear or play, Because the crown of eight glad years On one bright head is set to-day.

II

What matters cloud or sun to-day To him who wears the wreath of years So many, and all like flowers at play With wind and sunshine, while his ears Hear only song on every way? More sweet than spring triumphant hears Ring through the revel-rout of May Are these, the notes that winter fears.

III

Strong-hearted winter knows and fears The music made of love at play, Or haply loves the tune he hears From hearts fulfilled with flowering May, Whose molten music thaws his ears Late frozen, deaf but yesterday To sounds of dying and dawning years, Now quickened on his deathward way.

IV

For deathward now lies winter's way Down the green vestibule of years That each year brightens day by day With flower and shower till hope scarce fears And fear grows wholly hope of May. But we--the music in our ears Made of love's pulses as they play The heart alone that makes it hears.

V

The heart it is that plays and hears High salutation of to-day. Tongue falters, hand shrinks back, song fears Its own unworthiness to play Fit music for those eight sweet years, Or sing their blithe accomplished way. No song quite worth a young child's ears Broke ever even from birds in May.

VI

There beats not in the heart of May, When summer hopes and springtide fears, There falls not from the height of day, When sunlight speaks and silence hears, So sweet a psalm as children play And sing, each hour of all their years, Each moment of their lovely way, And know not how it thrills our ears.

VII

Ah child, what are we, that our ears Should hear you singing on your way, Should have this happiness? The years Whose hurrying wings about us play Are not like yours, whose flower-time fears Nought worse than sunlit showers in May, Being sinless as the spring, that hears Her own heart praise her every day.

VIII

Yet we too triumph in the day That bare, to entrance our eyes and ears, To lighten daylight, and to play Such notes as darkness knows and fears, The child whose face illumes our way, Whose voice lifts up the heart that hears, Whose hand is as the hand of May To bring us flowers from eight full years.

_February 4, 1882._

COMPARISONS

Child, when they say that others Have been or are like you, Babes fit to be your brothers, Sweet human drops of dew, Bright fruit of mortal mothers, What should one say or do?

We know the thought is treason, We feel the dream absurd; A claim rebuked of reason, That withers at a word: For never shone the season That bore so blithe a bird.

Some smiles may seem as merry, Some glances gleam as wise, From lips as like a cherry And scarce less gracious eyes; Eyes browner than a berry, Lips red as morning's rise.

But never yet rang laughter So sweet in gladdened ears Through wall and floor and rafter As all this household hears And rings response thereafter Till cloudiest weather clears.

When those your chosen of all men, Whose honey never cloys, Two lights whose smiles enthrall men, Were called at your age boys, Those mighty men, while small men, Could make no merrier noise.

Our Shakespeare, surely, daffed not More lightly pain aside From radiant lips that quaffed not Of forethought's tragic tide: Our Dickens, doubtless, laughed not More loud with life's first pride.

The dawn were not more cheerless With neither light nor dew Than we without the fearless Clear laugh that thrills us through: If ever child stood peerless, Love knows that child is you.

WHAT IS DEATH?

Looking on a page where stood Graven of old on old-world wood Death, and by the grave's edge grim, Pale, the young man facing him, Asked my well-beloved of me Once what strange thing; this might be, Gaunt and great of limb.

Death, I told him: and, surprise Deepening more his wildwood eyes (Like some sweet fleet thing's whose breath Speaks all spring though nought it saith), Up he turned his rosebright face Glorious with its seven years' grace, Asking--What is death?

A CHILD'S PITY

No sweeter thing than children's ways and wiles, Surely, we say, can gladden eyes and ears: Yet sometime sweeter than their words or smiles Are even their tears.

To one for once a piteous tale was read, How, when the murderous mother crocodile Was slain, her fierce brood famished, and lay dead, Starved, by the Nile.

In vast green reed-beds on the vast grey slime Those monsters motherless and helpless lay, Perishing only for the parent's crime Whose seed were they.

Hours after, toward the dusk, our blithe small bird Of Paradise, who has our hearts in keeping, Was heard or seen, but hardly seen or heard, For pity weeping.

He was so sorry, sitting still apart, For the poor little crocodiles, he said. Six years had given him, for an angel's heart, A child's instead.

Feigned tears the false beasts shed for murderous ends, We know from travellers' tales of crocodiles: But these tears wept upon them of my friend's Outshine his smiles.

What heavenliest angels of what heavenly city Could match the heavenly heart in children here? The heart that hallowing all things with its pity Casts out all fear?

So lovely, so divine, so dear their laughter Seems to us, we know not what could be more dear: But lovelier yet we see the sign thereafter Of such a tear.

With sense of love half laughing and half weeping We met your tears, our small sweet-spirited friend: Let your love have us in its heavenly keeping To life's last end.

A CHILD'S LAUGHTER

All the bells of heaven may ring, All the birds of heaven may sing, All the wells on earth may spring, All the winds on earth may bring All sweet sounds together; Sweeter far than all things heard, Hand of harper, tone of bird, Sound of woods at sundawn stirred, Welling water's winsome word, Wind in warm wan weather,

One thing yet there is, that none Hearing ere its chime be done Knows not well the sweetest one Heard of man beneath the sun, Hoped in heaven hereafter; Soft and strong and loud and light, Very sound of very light Heard from morning's rosiest height, When the soul of all delight Fills a child's clear laughter.

Golden bells of welcome rolled Never forth such notes, nor told Hours so blithe in tones so bold, As the radiant mouth of gold Here that rings forth heaven. If the golden-crested wren Were a nightingale--why, then, Something seen and heard of men Might be half as sweet as when Laughs a child of seven.

A CHILD'S THANKS

How low soe'er men rank us, How high soe'er we win, The children far above us Dwell, and they deign to love us, With lovelier love than ours, And smiles more sweet than flowers; As though the sun should thank us For letting light come in.

With too divine complaisance, Whose grace misleads them thus, Being gods, in heavenly blindness They call our worship kindness, Our pebble-gift a gem: They think us good to them, Whose glance, whose breath, whose presence, Are gifts too good for us.

The poet high and hoary Of meres that mountains bind Felt his great heart more often Yearn, and its proud strength soften From stern to tenderer mood, At thought of gratitude Shown than of song or story He heard of hearts unkind.

But with what words for token And what adoring tears Of reverence risen to passion, In what glad prostrate fashion Of spirit and soul subdued, May man show gratitude For thanks of children spoken That hover in his ears?

The angels laugh, your brothers, Child, hearing you thank me, With eyes whence night grows sunny, And touch of lips like honey, And words like honey-dew: But how shall I thank you? For gifts above all others What guerdon-gift may be?

What wealth of words caressing, What choice of songs found best, Would seem not as derision, Found vain beside the vision And glory from above Shown in a child's heart's love? His part in life is blessing; Ours, only to be blest.

A CHILD'S BATTLES

+pyx aretan heurôn+.--PINDAR.

Praise of the knights of old May sleep: their tale is told, And no man cares: The praise which fires our lips is A knight's whose fame eclipses All of theirs.

The ruddiest light in heaven Blazed as his birth-star seven Long years ago: All glory crown that old year Which brought our stout small soldier With the snow!

Each baby born has one Star, for his friends a sun, The first of stars: And we, the more we scan it, The more grow sure your planet, Child, was Mars.

For each one flower, perchance, Blooms as his cognizance: The snowdrop chill, The violet unbeholden, For some: for you the golden Daffodil.

Erect, a fighting flower, It breasts the breeziest hour That ever blew. And bent or broke things brittle Or frail, unlike a little Knight like you.

Its flower is firm and fresh And stout like sturdiest flesh Of children: all The strenuous blast that parches Spring hurts it not till March is Near his fall.

If winds that prate and fret Remark, rebuke, regret, Lament, or blame The brave plant's martial passion, It keeps its own free fashion All the same.

We that would fain seem wise Assume grave mouths and eyes Whose looks reprove Too much delight in battle: But your great heart our prattle Cannot move.

We say, small children should Be placid, mildly good And blandly meek: Whereat the broad smile rushes Full on your lips, and flushes All your cheek.

If all the stars that are Laughed out, and every star Could here be heard, Such peals of golden laughter We should not hear, as after Such a word.

For all the storm saith, still, Stout stands the daffodil: For all we say, Howe'er he look demurely, Our martialist will surely Have his way.

We may not bind with bands Those large and liberal hands, Nor stay from fight, Nor hold them back from giving: No lean mean laws of living Bind a knight.

And always here of old Such gentle hearts and bold Our land has bred: How durst her eye rest else on The glory shed from Nelson Quick and dead?

Shame were it, if but one Such once were born her son, That one to have borne, And brought him ne'er a brother: His praise should bring his mother Shame and scorn.

A child high-souled as he Whose manhood shook the sea Smiles haply here: His face, where love lies basking, With bright shut mouth seems asking, What is fear?

The sunshine-coloured fists Beyond his dimpling wrists Were never closed For saving or for sparing-- For only deeds of daring Predisposed.

Unclenched, the gracious hands Let slip their gifts like sands Made rich with ore That tongues of beggars ravish From small stout hands so lavish Of their store.

Sweet hardy kindly hands Like these were his that stands With heel on gorge Seen trampling down the dragon On sign or flask or flagon, Sweet Saint George.

Some tournament, perchance, Of hands that couch no lance, Might mark this spot Your lists, if here some pleasant Small Guenevere were present, Launcelot.

My brave bright flower, you need No foolish song, nor heed It more than spring The sighs of winter stricken Dead when your haunts requicken Here, my king.

Yet O, how hardly may The wheels of singing stay That whirl along Bright paths whence echo raises The phantom of your praises, Child, my song!

Beyond all other things That give my words fleet wings, Fleet wings and strong, You set their jesses ringing Till hardly can I, singing, Stint my song.

But all things better, friend, And worse must find an end: And, right or wrong, 'Tis time, lest rhyme should baffle, I doubt, to put a snaffle On my song.

And never may your ear Aught harsher hear or fear, Nor wolfish night Nor dog-toothed winter snarling Behind your steps, my darling My delight!

For all the gifts you give Me, dear, each day you live, Of thanks above All thanks that could be spoken Take not my song in token, Take my love.

A CHILD'S FUTURE

What will it please you, my darling, hereafter to be? Fame upon land will you look for, or glory by sea? Gallant your life will be always, and all of it free.

Free as the wind when the heart of the twilight is stirred Eastward, and sounds from the springs of the sunrise are heard: Free--and we know not another as infinite word.

Darkness or twilight or sunlight may compass us round, Hate may arise up against us, or hope may confound; Love may forsake us; yet may not the spirit be bound.