Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

A Child shall Lead them

By Henry Mills Alden (1836–1919)

THOU Child-Soul, sister of the Loving Ones

Whom Dante saw circling in choral dance

Above the stars; thou who in charmèd trance

Dost bind these earthly to those heavenly zones,

So that Love’s spell all lower life attones

To that far song; behold, thy ministrants—

All things that live—in loving train advance,

Thee following. Even as the Sea, that moans

With wildness, followeth the Moon’s white dream,

His rage suppressed—so, by thy heavenly mood

The fiercest beasts that in the jungle brood

Assuagèd are; and thou, sweet maid, shalt even

Thy triumph join unto the pomp supreme—

God’s kingdom come on Earth as ’tis in Heaven.