Babyhood

A baby shines as bright

If winter or if May be

On eyes that keep in sight

  A baby.

Though dark the skies or grey be,

It fills our eyes with light,

If midnight or midday be.

Love hails it, day and night,

The sweetest thing that may be

Yet cannot praise aright

  A baby.

II.

All heaven, in every baby born,

All absolute of earthly leaven,

Reveals itself, though man may scorn

  All heaven.

Yet man might feel all sin forgiven,

All grief appeased, all pain outworn,

By this one revelation given.

Soul, now forget thy burdens borne:

Heart, be thy joys now seven times seven:

Love shows in light more bright than morn

  All heaven.

III.

What likeness may define, and stray not

  From truth's exactest way,

A baby's beauty?  Love can say not

  What likeness may.

The Mayflower loveliest held in May

  Of all that shine and stay not

Laughs not in rosier disarray.

Sleek satin, swansdown, buds that play not

  As yet with winds that play,

Would fain be matched with this, and may not:

  What likeness may?

IV.

Rose, round whose bed

Dawn's cloudlets close,

Earth's brightest-bred

  Rose!

No song, love knows,

May praise the head

Your curtain shows.

Ere sleep has fled,

The whole child glows

One sweet live red

  Rose.