Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A DEAD BABY, by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK Poet's Biography First Line: Little soul, for such brief space Last Line: So, our first dream, our first hope -- is over. Alternate Author Name(s): Mulock, Dinah Maria Subject(s): Death - Children; Death - Babies | ||||||||
LITTLE soul, for such brief space that entered In this little body straight and chilly, Little life that fluttered and departed, Like a moth from an unopened lily, Little being, without name or nation, Where is now thy place among creation? Little dark-lashed eyes, unclosed never, Little mouth, by earthly food ne'er tainted, Little breast, that just once heaved, and settled In eternal slumber, white and sainted, -- Child, shall I in future children's faces See some pretty look that thine retraces? Is this thrill that strikes across my heart-strings And in dew beneath my eyelid gathers, Token of the bliss thou mightst have brought me, Dawning of the love they call a father's? Do I hear through this still room a sighing Like thy spirit to me its author crying? Whence didst come and whither take thy journey, Little soul, of me and mine created? Must thou lose us, and we thee, forever, O strange life, by minutes only dated? Or new flesh assuming, just to prove us, In some other babe return and love us? Idle questions all: yet our beginning Like our ending, rests with the Life-sender, With whom naught is lost, and naught spent vainly: Unto Him this little one I render. Hide the face -- the tiny coffin cover: So, our first dream, our first hope -- is over. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LOST CHILDREN by RANDALL JARRELL THE MOURNER by LOUISE MOREY BOWMAN MELANCHOLY; AN ODE by WILLIAM BROOME SISTERS IN ARMS by AUDRE LORDE A BOTANICAL TROPE by WILLIAM MEREDITH FOR MOHAMMED ZEID OF GAZA, AGE 15 by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE BY THE ALMA RIVER by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK DOUGLAS, DOUGLAS, TENDER AND TRUE by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK |
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