The Lamb Without

Whene'er I close the door at night,And turn the creaking key about,A pang renewed assails my heart—I think, my darling is shut out.

Think that, beneath these starry skies,He wanders, with his little feet;The pines stand, hushed in glad surprise,The garden yields its tribute sweet.

Thro' every well-known path and nookI see his angel footsteps glide,As guileless as the Pascal LambThat kept the Infant Saviour's side.

His earnest eye, perhaps, can pierceThe gloom in which his parents sit;He wonders what has changed the houseAnd why the cloud hangs over it.

He passes with a pensive smile—Why do they linger to grow old,And what the burthen on their hearts?On him shall sorrow have no hold.

Within the darkened porch I stand-—Scarce knowing why, I linger long;Oh! could I call thee back to meBright bird of heaven, with sooth or song!

But no—the wayworn wretch shall pauseTo bless the shelter of this door;Kinsman and guest shall enter in,But my lost darling never more.

Yet, waiting on his gentle ghost,From sorrow's void, so deep and dull,Comes a faint breathing of delight,A presence calm and beautiful.

I have him, not in outstretched arms,I hold him, not with straining sight,While in blue depths of quietudeDrops, like a star, my still "Good-night."

Thus, nightly, do I bow my headTo the Unseen, Eternal force;Asking sweet pardon of my childFor yielding him in Death's divorce.

He turned away from childish plays,His baby toys he held in scornHe loved the forms of thought divine,Woods, flowers, and fields of waving corn.

And then I knew, my little oneShould by no vulgar lore be taught;But by the symbols God has givenTo solemnize our common thought;

The mystic angles, three in one,The circling serpent's faultless round,And, in far glory dim, the Cross,Where Love o'erleaps the human bound.