Sure, to the mansions of the blest <br />When infant innocence ascends, <br />Some angel brighter than the rest <br />The spotless spirit's flight attends. <br />On wings of ecstasy they rise, <br />Beyond where worlds material roll <br />Till some fair sister of the skies <br />Receives the unpolluted soul <br />There, at the Almighty Father's hand, <br />Nearest the throne of living light, <br />The choirs of infant seraphs stand, <br />And dazzling shine, where all are bright. <br />That inextinguishable beam, <br />With dust united at our birth, <br />Sheds a more dim, discolored gleam, <br />The more it lingers upon earth. <br />Closed in this dark abode of clay, <br />The stream of glory faintly burns, <br />Nor unobscured the lucid ray <br />To its own native fount returns. <br />But when the Lord of mortal breath <br />Decrees his bounty to resume. <br />And points the silent shaft of death, <br />Which speeds an infant to the tomb <br />No passion fierce, no low desire, <br />Has quenched the radiance of the flame; <br />Back to its God the living fire Returns, unsullied, as it came.<br /><br />John Quincy Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-death-of-children/
