Kneel, undisturbed, fair Saint! Pour out your praise or plaint 20 Meekly and duly; I will not enter there, To sully your pure prayer With thoughts unruly. But suffer me to pace 25 Round the forbidden place, Lingering a minute, Like outcast spirits who wait And see through Heaven’s gate Angels within it. 30 _William Makepeace Thackeray._ CCXLII _ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN._ I saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature’s work; A floweret crushèd in the bud, A nameless piece of Babyhood, Was in her cradle-coffin lying; 5 Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: So soon to’ exchange the imprisoning womb For darker closets of the tomb! She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then straight up shut 10 For the long dark: ne’er more to see Through glasses of mortality. Riddle of destiny, who can show, What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? 15 Shall we say, that Nature blind Checked her hand, and changed her mind Just when she had exactly wrought A finished, pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, 20 Or lacked she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons’ long workings sickened) That should thy little limbs have quickened? Limbs so firm, they seemed to’ assure Life of health, and days mature: 25 Woman’s self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry 30 That babe or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock, And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widowed, and the pain When Single State comes back again 35 To the lone man who, reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimèd life? The economy of Heaven is dark, And wisest clerks have missed the mark Why human buds, like this, should fall 40 More brief than fly ephemeral That has his day; while shrivelled crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbèd use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. 45 --Mother’s prattle, mother’s kiss, Baby fond, thou ne’er wilt miss: Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells, and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips 50 Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infant’s glee, Whistle never tuned for thee;