Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/71

Rigid, cold, and silent, smitten dead.
Yet while I lay and impotently cursed It,
Methought, before It fled,
In place of Azrael, the awful angel,
When a fold fell from the countenance,
Methought I saw, O miracle! the Saviour,
With a world's love in His glance!
I beheld divinely human eyes of Jesus,
Unfathomable seas of sorrowing;
I saw, like flame, upon the riven forehead
His martyr-crown of King!
"Pardon, Lord!" I cried, "Oh, take my darling!"
Looking in His face, methought He smiled.
Ere they vanished, in the empty chamber kneeling.
I yielded Him my child.

And I felt a little babe may on a stranger
For a while a fondling joy confer,
Yet if he hear the low tone of his mother,
He will bound away to her.
Were we high and pure enough to be the guardians
Of a heavenly soul so pure and high?
God, who lent our bird out of His bosom,
Recalls him to the sky!
If He brought him to us, He can keep him
Safer than our foolish feeble care;
It is very blind of us to weep him
Removed from our sad air,