When June exhaled her rose-sweet breath And earth in sunshine smiled, Untimely came intrusive Death And stole away our child. As some fast-fading star declines, Dissolving in the sky; As wastes the dewdrop while it shines, So did our darling die. Ah, fairer than the violet frail, Frost-slain on April’s breast, And purer than the lily pale, The babe’s unbreathing rest. Our eyes grew numb with tearless woe, Prayer swooned upon the tongue, As to his lips of smiling snow Our anguished kisses clung. O hapless Victor, name of pride! Dear hands, poor little feet! No thorn ye found, no path ye tried;-- O envious winding sheet! Most mournful change and utter loss! Return, my child, return! Or, angels, guide my faith across The grave his state to learn. Oh, grant me from the vast unknown Some breath of solacing! The spirit! whither has it flown On timorous alien wing? All silent is the cruel sky; The saints no pity lend; My lamentation and my cry To heedless void ascend. My heart, my weeping, bleeding heart Wails at the door of fate, And faints in darkness and apart, Bereft and desolate. I only find, wher’er I grope, A cradle and a pall; Find, at the gloomy verge of hope, A grave--and that is all. An empty cradle and a lone Small mound of chilly sod, O’er which I bow and vainly moan To move the heart of God. THE LAST FLIGHT. Lo, in my path A frozen songbird lies, A victim of the sky’s Blind, elemental wrath. The stolid year Shall not in me repress The impulsive tenderness That moves a pitying tear. Life’s flutter o’er, Thy quavering heart, now still, No more shall throb and thrill, Shall love and fear no more. For thee in vain Shall Spring array the woods, In nest-safe neighborhoods:-- Thou canst not build again. Did instinct fail When, from the Boreal rack, Athwart thy migrant track Hurtled the ruthless gale? A cruel nest The feather-mocking snows! And ah, what gasping throes Assailed thy dying breast! Wing-spent, alone, Adrift from every mate, Flung down by baffling fate, Thou froze to the Unknown. How saith the Word? Does He who governs all Take notice of the fall Forlorn, of thee, poor bird? And is it so His awful love divine Provides for me and mine When frore the tempests blow? Mute traveler, say, How fare we when we die, And whither do we fly Along the unseen way? Vain questionings In death’s bleak eddy whirled! What heeds the other world My broken, bleeding wings? Is life no more? Is death the final doom? Or shall the soul replume Her flight and sing and soar?