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[From Recollections of Childhood.]
I SAW the infant cherub—soft it lay, | |
| As it was wont, within its cradle, now | |
| Deck’d with sweet smelling flowers. A sight so strange | |
| Fill’d my young breast with wonder, and I gazed | |
| Upon the babe the more. I thought it slept— | 5 |
| And yet its little bosom did not move! | |
| I bent me down to look into its eyes, | |
| But they were closed: then, softly clasp’d its hand, | |
| But mine it would not clasp. What should I do? | |
| “Wake, brother, wake!” I then impatient cried, | 10 |
| “Open thine eyes, and look on me again!” | |
| He would not hear my voice. All pale beside | |
| My weeping mother sat, “and gazed and look’d | |
| Unutterable things.” Will he not wake? | |
| I eager ask’d: She answer’d but with tears. | 15 |
| Her eyes on me, at length, with piteous look | |
| Were cast—now on the babe once more were fix’d— | |
| And now on me: then with convulsive sigh | |
| And throbbing heart, she clasp’d me in her arms, | |
| And in a tone of anguish faintly said— | 20 |
| “My dearest boy! thy brother does not sleep; | |
| Alas! he ’s dead; he never will awake.” | |
| He ’s dead! I knew not what it meant, but more | |
| To know I sought not. For the words so sad, | |
| “He never will awake”—sunk in my soul: | 25 |
| I felt a pang unknown before, and tears | |
| That angels might have shed, my heart dissolved. 1 | |
