Pure and helpless, sacred therefore,
Is the baby on the breast,
Is the child by love caressed,
Happy creatures young and blest,
Whom the hoy angels care for.
Silky ringlets in a flicker,
Like a pale auroral light,
Round a pearly stalactite,
Dance about their necks of white,
If the heart but flutter quicker.
Eyes unfathomed, and as simple
As the blue sky’s liquid calms,
Lips whose sweetness is an alms,
Fingers married to their palms,
With a wrinkle and a dimple. —
Are the symbol and the ermine,
Of their white and queenly souls,
That laugh out in music rolls
Mimic thunder, when the poles
Of electric joy determine.
Even their small distress and sorrow,
Are but April’s freckled blue,
Bright clouds shedding rain like dew,
And the sunshine melting through,
With flower-dyes of to-morrow.
He whose judgement thunders ‘wildering,
Struck the strong in error’s tribes,
Lordly Pharisees and Scribes, —
Spite of sanctimonious jibes,
Took and blest the little Children.
In the kingdom of the Father,
In the bosom of the Son,
In the hearts of every one
Blest are they where life begun,
And above where Angels gather.
Little Children