The little cousin is dead, by foul subtraction, <br />A green bough from Virginia's aged tree, <br />And none of the county kin like the transaction, <br />Nor some of the world of outer dark, like me. <br /> <br />A boy not beautiful, nor good, nor clever, <br />A black cloud full of storms too hot for keeping, <br />A sword beneath his mother's heart—yet never <br />Woman bewept her babe as this is weeping. <br /> <br />A pig with a pasty face, so I had said, <br />Squealing for cookies, kinned by poor pretense <br />With a noble house. But the little man quite dead, <br />I see the forbears' antique lineaments. <br /> <br />The elder men have strode by the box of death <br />To the wide flag porch, and muttering low send round <br />The bruit of the day. O friendly waste of breath! <br />Their hearts are hurt with a deep dynastic wound. <br /> <br />He was pale and little, the foolish neighbors say; <br />The first-fruits, saith the Preacher, the Lord hath taken; <br />But this was the old tree's late branch wrenched away, <br />Grieving the sapless limbs, the short and shaken.<br /><br />John Crowe Ransom<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dead-boy/
