Thoughts While Making a Grave for a First Child, Born Dead

Room, gentle flowers! my child would pass to heaven!
Ye look'd not for her yet with your soft eyes,
O, watchful ushers at Death's narrow door!
But, lo! while you delay to let her forth,
Angels, beyond, stay for her! One long kiss
From lips all pale with agony, and tears,
Wrung after anguish had dried up with fire
The eyes that wept them, were the cup of life
Held as a welcome to her. Weep, O, mother!
But not that from this cup of bitterness
A cherub of the sky has turn'd away.
One look upon her face ere she depart!
My daughter! it is soon to let thee go!
My daughter! with thy birth has gush'd a spring
I knew not of: filling my heart with tears,
And turning with strange tenderness to thee!
A love — O, God, it seems so — which must flow
Far as thou fleest, and 'twixt Heaven and me,
Henceforward, be a sweet and yearning chain,
Drawing me after thee! And so farewell!
'T is a harsh world in which affection knows
No place to treasure up its loved and lost
But the lone grave! Thou, who so late was sleeping
Warm in the close fold of a mother's heart,
Scarce from her breast a single pulse receiving,
But it was sent thee with some tender thought —
How can I leave thee here! Alas, for man!
The herb in its humility may fall,
And waste into the bright and genial air,
While we, by hands that minister'd in life
Nothing but love to us, are thrust away,
The earth thrown in upon our just cold bosoms,
And the warm sunshine trodden out forever!
Yet have I chosen for thy grave, my child,
A bank where I have lain in summer hours,
And thought how little it would seem like death
To sleep amid such loveliness. The brook
Tripping with laughter down the rocky steps
That lead us to thy bed, would still trip on,
Breaking the dread hush of the mourners gone;
The birds are never silent that build here,
Trying to sing down the more vocal waters;
The slope is beautiful with moss and flowers;
And, far below, seen under arching leaves,
Glitters the warm sun on the village spire,
Pointing the living after thee. And this
Seems like a comfort, and, replacing now
The flowers that have made room for thee, I go
To whisper the same peace to her who lies
Robb'd of her child, and lonely. 'T is the work
Of many a dark hour, and of many a prayer,
To bring the heart back from an infant gone!
Hope must give o'er, and busy fancy blot
Its images from all the silent rooms,
And every sight and sound familiar to her
Undo its sweetest link; and so, at last,
The fountain that, once loosed, must flow forever,
Will hide and waste in silence. When the smile
Steals to her pallid lip again, and spring
Wakens its buds above thee, we will come,
And, standing by thy music-haunted grave,
Look on each other cheerfully, and say,
A child that we have loved is gone to heaven,
And hy this gate of flowers she pass'd away!