First-Born, The

        Mystery! Mystery!
          Holy and strange; 
        What a life-history,
          Fruitful of change,
          And endless of range,
Is folded here, sweet within sweet, like a blossom. 
        Darling of Paradise,
          Pure as its dew, 
        Drop'd from the starry skies,
          With their rich hue
          In thine eyes' blue — 
O dearer than life is thy weight on my bosom.

        Beauty, how simple,
          Yet holy and grand, 
        Curls every dimple
          On white cheek and hand,
          As eddies, breeze-fanned, 
Are curled on a lakelet of full-budded lilies;
        White as the moon is
          Thy slumberous lid, 
        Bright as the noon is
          The glance by it hid,
          And as potent to bid 
New bloom to a heart where unlove with its chill is.

        Darling and treasure!
          O, not for the rose, 
        Lily and azure,
          That deck thy repose —
          Or gleam when it goes,
Call I thee Darling— 0, God-lent and hallowed,— 
        But for the wonder which
          Weds thee to Him, 
        Deep-folded under each
          Feature and limb,
          And seeming to swim 
In depths of thy bosom that heaves, many-billowed: —

         But for the suffering,
           Out of whose fire 
        Rose the best offering 
          Of my desire, 
          Retaught to aspire,
And came the white Sanctity of the Maternal;
        For the deep thrilling
          Of Hope and of Fear, 
        In the fulfilling
          Of my divine sphere.
          That holily near 
Is bound by thy life to the Father Supernal.

        Tenderly, tenderly, 
          Thee will I keep!
        Purely to render thee, 
          In thy pure sleep, 
          To the angels who steep 
Thy lids in repose and an earthly forgetting;
        Leaving or living,
          To yield, when I must,
        In a fit giving,
          My beautiful trust, 
          As unstained with the dust, 
As spirit may be in a clay-moulded setting.

        God keep and shield thee,
          Sweet Baby mine! 
        Spirit-life yield thee
          From his Divine,
          In blue eyes to shine, 
Serenely as stars through the azure night-arches:
        Angels, with winglets
          White and unseen, 
        Flutter thy ringlets
          Made gold in the sheen
          Of their eyes, starry keen, 
As they guide thee, my Baby, in life's rugged marches.