X.
Unchildlike shade!—no other babe doth wear
An aspect very sorrowful, as Thou.—
No small babe-smiles, my watching heart has seen,
To float like speech the speechless lips between;
No dovelike cooing in the golden air,
No quick short joys of leaping babyhood.
Alas, our earthly good
In heaven thought evil, seems too good for Thee:
Yet, sleep, my weary One!
XI.
And then the drear, sharp tongue of prophecy,
With the dread sense of things which shall be done,
Doth smite me inly, like a sword—a sword?—
(That "smites the Shepherd!") then I think aloud
The words "despised,"—"rejected,"—every word
Recoiling into darkness as I view
The darling on my knee.
Bright angels,—move not!—lest ye stir the cloud
Betwixt my soul and His futurity!
I must not die, with mother's work to do,
And could not live—and see.
XII.
It is enough to bear
This image still and fair—
This holier in sleep,
Than a saint at prayer:
This aspect of a child
Who never sinned or smiled—
This presence in an infant's face:
This sadness most like love,
This love than love more deep,
This weakness like omnipotence,
It is so strong to move!
Awful is this watching place,
Awful what I see from hence—
A king, without regalia,
A God, without the thunder,
A child, without the heart for play;
Ay, a Creator rent asunder
From His first glory and cast away
On His own world, for me alone
To hold in hands created, crying—Son!
XIII.
That tear fell not on Thee
Beloved, yet Thou stirrest in Thy slumber!
Thou, stirring not for glad sounds out of number
Which through the vibratory palm-trees run
From summer wind and bird,
So quickly hast Thou heard
A tear fall silently?—
Wak'st Thou, O loving One?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.