TO A FRENCH BABY

What unsaid messages arise

Behind your clear and wondering eyes,

O grave and tiny citizen?

And who, of wise and valiant men,

Can answer those mute questionings?

I think the captains and the kings

Might well kneel in humility

Before you on your mother's knee,

As knelt, beside a stable door,

Other great men, long before.

In you, poor little lad, one sees

All children and all mothers’ knees:

All voices inarticulate

That cry against the hymns of hate;

All homes, by Thames or Rhine or Seine,

Where cradles will not rock again.