Poem by Alexander Anderson

The Dead Child

   "All its innocent thoughts,
   Like rose leaves scattered."

                                [Wilson]

There is an angel sleeping in this room,
A little angel, with the quietest bloom
Of white, all downy-like, upon the cheek
And round the brow; and yet it will not speak,
Though the small lips retain the hues from which
We fondly wish the eloquence of speech;
But in its silence seeming still a form
Cut by some sculptor when his mind was warm
With highest beauty. Look! I pull away
The little curtain, and you look on clay,
Yet clay so wrought to love's own rest that you
But weep to share the calm that meets your view,
Then worship, and with fingers fondly touch
The little brow that wakens not at such;
Put back the delicate wealth of silken hair,
And wonder why it keeps so fresh and fair;
Kiss the faint curvèd lips, and you the while,
A dupe to fancy, think they sweetly smile;
Press the shut eyelids, that, all white and even,
Like tiny clouds that hide blue spots of heaven,
Droop o'er those eyes, whose light has fled away,
To leave this human blossom to decay,
Like the few flowers that yet seem dewy fair
Within the little hands. We placed them there,
As if to see how well their hues would keep,
A perfect type of its most innocent sleep.
But these will wither, and the grave will hide
Within its dull, dank, clasp our household pride,
And little feet will touch no more the hearth,
And little lips will laugh no more their mirth,
But silence, ever deeper when we miss
A cherub presence for its nightly kiss.
Yet in our hearts' most sacred spot shall be
A little angel type of this we see—
Fair, pure, and heavenly, through the changing years,
And kept all golden with our sweetest tears,
Until the little form, not lost, but hid
Far in our bosom like a golden thread,
Shall twine itself around our life till we
Bear lighter weight of sin and earth, and see
Before us all our paths shaped out by love,
And brighten'd with a shadow from above,
Beneath whose balm and Hope's eternal tone
The days but seem as links to guide us on.
Till, when we reach our pilgrimage of clay,
And all we had of earth is pass'd away,
We find at last beyond the stars' abode
Our little wither'd bud full blown in God.

1. Nottman
2. Cuddle Doon
3. “Drew the Wrong Lever!”
4. The Long Deep Grass in Springing
5. Bonnie Bessie Logan

Ernest Dowson The Dead Child ("Sleep on, dear, now")

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