Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/103

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A LITTLE CHILD'S MONUMENT.

Angels tend the children
Waking or asleep,
They rebuke the evil,
Who have made them weep.
Heaven's crystal glory gloweth
Rainbowed as they fly
To where earth's night, illumined
In their sweet charity,
Dawneth silently!

In the lordly castle,
In the dungeon deep.
In the lonely hovel,
Love-vigil they keep.
Fair be the children, cherished,
Sweethearted, rosed with health,
Or poor and starved, and wanting
The soul's holier wealth,
Inheritors of sorrow,
By leaguering ills deformed,
Plague-smitten soul and body,
Poor hearts love never warmed,—
With all the angels tarry;
And though the fire be low,
They will fan the ember
To a living glow;
Inhabiting our sorrow,
Our chilled heart of wrong,