A Child’s Grave at Florence

I.
Of English blood, of Tuscan birth,
&nbspWhat country should we give her?
Instead of any on the earth,
&nbspThe civic Heavens receive her.

II.
And here among the English tombs
&nbspIn Tuscan ground we lay her,
While the blue Tuscan sky endomes
&nbspOur English words of prayer.

III.
A little child!—how long she lived,
&nbspBy months, not years, is reckoned:
Born in one July, she survived
&nbspAlone to see a second.

IV.
Bright-featured, as the July sun
&nbspHer little face still played in,
And splendours, with her birth begun,
&nbspHad had no time for fading.

V.
So, Lily, from those July hours,
&nbspNo wonder we should call her;
She looked such kinship to the flowers,—
&nbspWas but a little taller.

VI.
A Tuscan Lily,—only white,
&nbspAs Dante, in abhorrence
Of red corruption, wished aright
&nbspThe lilies of his Florence.

VII.
We could not wish her whiter,—her
&nbspWho perfumed with pure blossom
The house—a lovely thing to wear
&nbspUpon a mother’s bosom!

VIII.
This July creature thought perhaps
&nbspOur speech not worth assuming;
She sat upon her parents’ laps
&nbspAnd mimicked the gnat’s humming;

IX.
Said “father,” “mother”—then left off,
&nbspFor tongues celestial, fitter:
Her hair had grown just long enough
&nbspTo catch heaven’s jasper-glitter.

X.
Babes! Love could always hear and see
&nbspBehind the cloud that hid them.
“Let little children come to Me,
&nbspAnd do not thou forbid them.”

XI.
So, unforbidding, have we met,
&nbspAnd gently here have laid her,
Though winter is no time to get
&nbspThe flowers that should o’erspread her:

XII.
We should bring pansies quick with spring,
&nbspRose, violet, daffodilly,
And also, above everything,
&nbspWhite lilies for our Lily.

XIII.
Nay, more than flowers, this grave exacts,—
&nbspGlad, grateful attestations
Of her sweet eyes and pretty acts,
&nbspWith calm renunciations.

XIV.
Her very mother with light feet
&nbspShould leave the place too earthy,
Saying “The angels have thee, Sweet,
&nbspBecause we are not worthy.”

XV.
But winter kills the orange-buds,
&nbspThe gardens in the frost are,
And all the heart dissolves in floods,
&nbspRemembering we have lost her.

XVI.
Poor earth, poor heart,—too weak, too weak
&nbspTo miss the July shining!
Poor heart!—what bitter words we speak
&nbspWhen God speaks of resigning!

XVII.
Sustain this heart in us that faints,
&nbspThou God, the self-existent!
We catch up wild at parting saints
&nbspAnd feel Thy heaven too distant.

XVIII.
The wind that swept them out of sin
&nbspHas ruffled all our vesture:
On the shut door that let them in
&nbspWe beat with frantic gesture,—

XIX.
To us, us also, open straight!
&nbspThe outer life is chilly;
Are we too, like the earth, to wait
&nbspTill next year for our Lily?

XX.
—Oh, my own baby on my knees,
&nbspMy leaping, dimpled treasure,
At every word I write like these,
&nbspClasped close with stronger pressure!

XXI.
Too well my own heart understands,—
&nbspAt every word beats fuller—
My little feet, my little hands,
&nbspAnd hair of Lily’s colour!

XXII.
But God gives patience, Love learns strength,
&nbspAnd Faith remembers promise,
And Hope itself can smile at length
&nbspOn other hopes gone from us.

XXIII.
Love, strong as Death, shall conquer Death,
&nbspThrough struggle made more glorious:
This mother stills her sobbing breath,
&nbspRenouncing yet victorious.

XXIV.
Arms, empty of her child, she lifts
&nbspWith spirit unbereaven,—
“God will not all take back His gifts;
&nbspMy Lily’s mine in heaven.

XXV.
“Still mine! maternal rights serene
&nbspNot given to another!
The crystal bars shine faint between
&nbspThe souls of child and mother.

XXVI.
“Meanwhile,” the mother cries, “content!
&nbspOur love was well divided:
Its sweetness following where she went,
&nbspIts anguish stayed where I did.

XXVII.
“Well done of God, to halve the lot,
&nbspAnd give her all the sweetness;
To us, the empty room and cot,—
&nbspTo her, the Heaven’s completeness.

XXVIII.
“To us, this grave,—to her, the rows
&nbspThe mystic palm-trees spring in;
To us, the silence in the house,—
&nbspTo her, the choral singing.

XXIX.
“For her, to gladden in God’s view,—
&nbspFor us, to hope and bear on.
Grow, Lily, in thy garden new,
&nbspBeside the Rose of Sharon!

XXX.
“Grow fast in heaven, sweet Lily clipped,
&nbspIn love more calm than this is,
And may the angels dewy-lipped
&nbspRemind thee of our kisses!

XXXI.
“While none shall tell thee of our tears,
&nbspThese human tears now falling,
Till, after a few patient years,
&nbspOne home shall take us all in.

XXXII.
“Child, father, mother—who, left out?
&nbspNot mother, and not father!
And when, our dying couch about,
&nbspThe natural mists shall gather,

XXXIII.
“Some smiling angel close shall stand
&nbspIn old Correggio’s fashion,
And bear a Lily in his hand,
&nbspFor death’s ANNUCIATION."