We Had a Child

We had a child, a little Fairy Prince,
Let loose from Elfland for our heart's delight;
Ah! was it yesterday or four years since
He beamed upon our sight?
Four years--and yet it seems but yesterday
Since the blue wonder of his baby eyes.
Beneath their ebon-fringèd canopies,
Subdued us to his sway.

Three years--and yet but yestermorn it seems
Since first upon his feet he swaying stood,
Buoyed bravely up by memory's magic dreams
Of elfin hardihood.
He stood, the while that long-forgotten lore
Lit all his lovely face with frolic glee;
And then--O marvel! to his mother's knee
Walked the wide nursery floor.

Two years gone by--ah, no! but yesterday
Our bright-eyed nursling, swift as we could teach,
Forsook the low soft croonings of the fay
For broken human speech--
Broken, yet to our ears divinelier broken
Than sweetest snatches from Heaven's mounting bird--
More eloquent than the poet's passionate word
Supremely sung or spoken.

But O, our darling in his joyful dance
Tottered death-pale beneath the withering north,
Into a kinder clime, most blessed chance,
We caught him swiftly forth,
And there he bloomed again, our fairy boy,
Two year-long Aprils through in sun and shower,
Wing-footed Mercury of each merry hour,
The Genius of our joy.

And evermore we shared his shifting mood
Of hide-and-seek with April joy and sorrow,
Till not one shadow of solicitude
Remained to mar our morrow;
Yea, every fear had flown, lest, welladay!
The headlong heats or winter's piercing power
Should light afresh upon our radiant flower
And wither him away.

We had a child, a little fairy child,
He kissed us on the lips but yesternight,
Yet when he wakened his blue eyes were wild
With fevered light.
We had a child--what countless ages since,
Did he go forth from us with wildered brain,
Will he come back and kiss us once again--
Our little Fairy Prince?