The Child: At Nazareth

I

Once, measuring His height, He stood
Beneath a cypress-tree,
And, leaning back against the wood,
Stretched wide His arms for me;
Whereat a brooding mother-dove
Fled fluttering from her nest above.

II

At evening He loved to walk
Among the shadowy hills, and talk
Of Bethlehem;
But if perchance there passed us by
The paschal lambs, He'd look at them
In silence, long and tenderly;
And when again He'd try to speak,
I've seen the tears upon His cheek.