THE INFANT M —— M ——

By William Wordsworth

Unquiet Childhood here by special grace

Forgets her nature, opening like a flower

That neither feeds nor wastes its vital power

In painful struggles. Months each other chase,

And nought untunes that Infant's voice; no trace

Of fretful temper sullies her pure cheek;

Prompt, lively, self-sufficing, yet so meek

That one enrapt with gazing on her face

( Which even the placid innocence of death

Could scarcely make more placid, heaven more bright )

Might learn to picture, for the eye of faith,

The Virgin, as she shone with kindred light;

A nursling couched upon her mother's knee,

Beneath some shady palm of Galilee.