Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/148

 Confounding fools who are not of their kith! But woe for him who is contented here! Tho' lordly gold adorn his lonely bier, Dead, self-involved, and stark, a thing of fear!

One justifies the sweet nest-building birds, And blind prevision of the honied herds: Shall Nature only disappoint, and flout Her fairest Son, who floundering in doubt, Yet lifts child-eyes in dim pathetic trust, With, "Mother, wilt thou leave me in the dust?" Ye, scarred with moral ulcers from the womb, Who can but fester for a moral tomb, Whom penal strokes, and groping cures immerse More deeply in the virus of your curse! Mine own dear children, of hope unfulfilled! Ye myriad maimed souls, who seem but spilled Vainly in void abysses! you, ye germs, Who perish in dark cherishing earth! poor worms A careless delver wounds; all lowly creatures Or man or nature rends! your very features We may discern not: only through a veil We feel some form: and our wan cheeks are pale, Deeming the selves inviolable may fail, With their own shows of being! On a moment Of your eternal lives we pass vain comment. Judging by sense, in place of Love's deep reason, Whence our wild insult and reproach; high treason