Page:Poems Craik.djvu/139

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MY CHRISTIAN NAME.
121
But silence sits at my cold hearth,—
I have no household name.

My Christian name, my Christian name,
It has an uncouth sound;
My mother chose it out of those
In Bible pages found:
Mother, whose accents made half sweet
What else I held in shame,
Dost thou remember up in heaven .
My poor lost Christian name?

Brothers and sisters, mockers oft
Of the quaint name I bore,
Would I could leap back years, to hear
Ye shout it out once more!
One speaks it still, in written lines,
The last fraternal claim:
But the wide seas between us drown
Its sound—my Christian name.

I had a long dream once. Her voice
Might breathe the homely word,
And make it music—as love makes
Any name, said or heard.
O, dumb, dumb lips!—O, silent heart!
Though it is no one's blame:
Now while I live I 'll never hear
Her speak my Christian name.