Angel Help[1]

This rare tablet doth include Poverty with sanctitude. Past midnight this poor maid hath spun, And yet the work is not half done, Which must supply from earnings scant A feeble bedrid parent's want. Her sleep-charged eyes exemption ask, And Holy hands take up the task; Unseen the rock and spindle ply, And do her earthly drudgery. Sleep, saintly poor one! sleep, sleep on; And, waking, find thy labors done. Perchance she knows it by her dreams; Her eye hath caught the golden gleams, Angelic presence testifying, That round her everywhere are flying; Ostents from which she may presume, That much of heaven is in the room. Skirting her own bright hair they run, And to the sunny add more sun: Now on that aged face they fix, Streaming from the Crucifix; The flesh-clogg'd spirit disabusing, Death-disarming sleeps infusing, Prelibations, foretastes high, And equal thoughts to live or die. Gardener bright from Eden's bower, Tend with care that lily flower; To its leaves and root infuse Heaven's sunshine, Heaven's dews. 'Tis a type, and 'tis a pledge, Of a crowning privilege. Careful as that lily flower, This maid must keep her precious dower; Live a sainted maid, or die Martyr to virginity.

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ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN.

I saw where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work. A flow'ret crushed in the bud, A nameless piece of Babyhood, Was in her cradle-coffin lying; Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: So soon to exhange 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 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? Shall we say, that Nature blind Check'd her hand, and changed her mind, Just when she had exactly wrought A finish'd pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, Or lack'd she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health and days mature: 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, That babe or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock, And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed life? The economy of Heaven is dark; And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark, Why Human Buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral, That has his day; while shrivell'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. 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, Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never tuned for thee; Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, Loving hearts were they which gave them. Let not one be missing; nurse, See them laid upon the hearse Of infant slain by doom perverse. Why should kings and nobles have Pictured trophies to their grave; And we, churls, to thee deny Thy pretty toys with thee to lie, A more harmless vanity?

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THE CHRISTENING.

Array'd--a half-angelic sight-- In vests of pure Baptismal white, The mother to the Font doth bring The little helpless nameless thing, With hushes soft and mild caressing, At once to get--a name and blessing. Close by the babe the Priest doth stand, The Cleansing Water at his hand, Which must assoil the soul within From every stain of Adam's sin. The Infant eyes the mystic scenes, Nor knows what all this wonder means; And now he smiles, as if to say "I am a Christian made this day;" Now frighted clings to Nurse's hold, Shrinking from the water cold, Whose virtues, rightly understood, Are, as Bethesda's waters, good. Strange words--The World, The Flesh, The Devil-- Poor Babe, what can it know of evil? But we must silently adore Mysterious truths, and not explore. Enough for him, in after-times, When he shall read these artless rhymes, If, looking back upon this day With quiet conscience, he can say-- "I have in part redeem'd the pledge Of my Baptismal privilege; And more and more will strive to flee All which my Sponsors kind did then renounce for me."

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