LITTLE soul, for such brief space that entered <br />In this little body straight and chilly, <br />Little life that fluttered and departed, <br />Like a moth from an unopened lily, <br />Little being, without name or nation, <br />Where is now thy place among creation? <br /> <br />Little dark-lashed eyes, unclosèd never, <br />Little mouth, by earthly food ne'er tainted, <br />Little breast, that just once heaved, and settled <br />In eternal slumber, white and sainted,-- <br />Child, shall I in future children's faces <br />See some pretty look that thine retraces? <br /> <br />Is this thrill that strikes across my heart-strings <br />And in dew beneath my eyelid gathers, <br />Token of the bliss thou mightst have brought me, <br />Dawning of the love they call a father's? <br />Do I hear through this still room a sighing <br />Like thy spirit to me its author crying? <br /> <br />Whence didst come and whither take thy journey, <br />Little soul, of me and mine created? <br />Must thou lose us, and we thee, forever, <br />O strange life, by minutes only dated? <br />Or new flesh assuming, just to prove us, <br />In some other babe return and love us? <br /> <br />Idle questions all: yet our beginning <br />Like our ending, rests with the Life-sender, <br />With whom naught is lost, and naught spent vainly: <br />Unto Him this little one I render. <br />Hide the face--the tiny coffin cover: <br />So, our first dream, our first hope--is over.<br /><br />Dinah Maria Mulock Craik<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-dead-baby/
