MULTUM IN PARVO
Baby-child,
Mystery of mysteries,
Com’st thou from the starry skies
Pleased to don Life’s motley guise
Dark and wild?
Frail and slight,
Hardly uttered of the Womb,
Lov’st thou Sorrow, Want and Gloom
So to exchange for song and bloom
Sin and blight?
Swaddled thus,
What a Wonder may’st thou be
Touched by mystic Destiny,
Oh, trite Possibility
Marvellous!
Drowsy so,
Doth a mighty Spirit brace
Earthy thews anew; to trace
Deeds that mock at Time and Place,
Bond and throe?
Baby-fists,
Shall they clutch the flashing blade,
Touch the use of politic aid,
Tilt with sinew undismayed
In Life’s lists?
Chubby things,
Shall they stretch a loving hand
Unto such on Life’s rough strand
As may never understand
Sheltering wings?
Baby-feet,
Scarce distinguishable forms,
Must they foot amid Life’s storms
Lonely; none to soothe its qualms,
None to weet?
Wearied, sore,
Hardly shall they seek to run
Up the passes where begun
All is strife till strife is done
Evermore?
Baby-face,
Shall it wear the print of Time,
Woven o’er with hoary rime:
Or shall Death in sunnier clime
Pallor trace?
As years wend,
Shall its lineaments tell the sage
Scarred with honourable age,
Ere Life turn its latest page
For the End?
Liquid eyes,
Whence outpeers the wizard soul,
Shall its lustre spell control
Calm, impregnable and whole,
Firm and wise?
Flame and flash
Only when a careless foot
Tramples thro’ Life’s cruel bruit
Heedless, heartless, then to shoot
Hates that slash!
Be it so!
Shall they wizard wonders see
In the wrapt Futurity,
Whither, swathing shackles free,
Time must go?
Aerial ships,
Searching out the vasty blue,
Darting whither to endue
Peace with beauty, Warfare’s new
Scathing whips?
Brotherhood:
Twining men of every race,
Knowing neither high nor base,
Spurning pomp and pride of place,
One of brood?
Howe’er ’tis,
Baby, shun no Duty’s call,
Fear thy God, love peoples all,
Then whatever shall befall,
Thine is bliss!
Lovely child,
Smiling with such heedless eyes,
Com’st thou from the starry skies
So to search Life’s enterprise
Dark and wild?