Charles Tennyson Turner

Our Mary and the Child Mummy

WHEN the four quarters of the globe shall rise,—
  Men, women, children, at the judgment-time,—
  Perchance this Memphian girl, dead ere her prime,
Shall drop her mask, and with dark, new-born eyes
Salute our English Mary, loved and lost:
  The Father knows her little scroll of prayer,
  And life as pure as his Egyptian air;—
For though she knew not Jesus, nor the cost
At which he won the world, she learned to pray;
  And though our own sweet babe on Christ’s good name
    Spent her last breath, premonished and advised
    Of him, and in his glorious church baptized,—
She will not spurn this old-world child away,
  Nor put her poor embalmèd heart to shame.