Poem by Charles Tennyson Turner

Her First-Born

IT was her first sweet child, her heart’s delight;
  And though we all foresaw his early doom,
We kept the fearful secret out of sight;
  We saw the canker, but she kissed the bloom.
And yet it might not be: we could not brook
  To vex her happy heart with vague alarms,
To blanch with fear her fond intrepid look,
  Or send a thrill through those encircling arms.
She smiled upon him, waking or at rest;
  She could not dream her little child would die;
  She tossed him fondly with an upward eye;
    She seemed as buoyant as a summer spray
That dances with a blossom on its breast,
    Nor knows how soon it will be borne away.

1. The South-Foreland Electric Light
2. The Hydraulic Ram, or The Influence of Sound on Mood
3. Silkworms and Spiders
4. The Sonneteer to the Sea-Shell
5. On the Eclipse of the Moon of October 1865

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