Multum In Parvo

Baby-child, Mystery of mysteries, Com’st thou from the starry skies Pleased to don Life’s motley guise Dark and wild?

Frail and slight, Hardly uttered of the Womb, Lov’st thou Sorrow, Want and Gloom So to exchange for song and bloom Sin and blight?

Swaddled thus, What a Wonder may’st thou be Touched by mystic Destiny, Oh, trite Possibility Marvellous!

Drowsy so, Doth a mighty Spirit brace Earthy thews anew; to trace Deeds that mock at Time and Place, Bond and throe?

Baby-fists, Shall they clutch the flashing blade, Touch the use of politic aid, Tilt with sinew undismayed In Life’s lists?

Chubby things, Shall they stretch a loving hand Unto such on Life’s rough strand As may never understand Sheltering wings?

Baby-feet, Scarce distinguishable forms, Must they foot amid Life’s storms Lonely; none to soothe its qualms, None to weet?

Wearied, sore, Hardly shall they seek to run Up the passes where begun All is strife till strife is done Evermore?

Baby-face, Shall it wear the print of Time, Woven o’er with hoary rime: Or shall Death in sunnier clime Pallor trace?

As years wend, Shall its lineaments tell the sage Scarred with honourable age, Ere Life turn its latest page For the End?

Liquid eyes, Whence outpeers the wizard soul, Shall its lustre spell control Calm, impregnable and whole, Firm and wise?

Flame and flash Only when a careless foot Tramples thro’ Life’s cruel bruit Heedless, heartless, then to shoot Hates that slash!

Be it so! Shall they wizard wonders see In the wrapt Futurity, Whither, swathing shackles free, Time must go?

Aerial ships, Searching out the vasty blue, Darting whither to endue Peace with beauty, Warfare’s new Scathing whips?

Brotherhood: Twining men of every race, Knowing neither high nor base, Spurning pomp and pride of place, One of brood?

Howe’er ’tis, Baby, shun no Duty’s call, Fear thy God, love peoples all, Then whatever shall befall, Thine is bliss!

* * * * *

Lovely child, Smiling with such heedless eyes, Com’st thou from the starry skies So to search Life’s enterprise Dark and wild?

Friends vanish at my face; yet, as they fly, Swoll’n with the sombre mood of conjured schism, I hear thee say thou whom the holy chrism Has sealed as mine eternal--“Dear, do I Outweigh the scales; if this one form be nigh, Shall that suffice thee in this dark abysm?” Ah, think, Belov’d! did some great cataclysm Fierce-swoop upon to enshroud the midnight sky, Did gulf the multitudinous stars but one, Some Betelgeuse, in beauty-flame of love Gleaming and twinkling in the lowly mart Of tremulous darkness, how ’twould swell upon The vaults of Heaven; how rare so poised above! Even so in lone magnificence thou art!

A Fancy fair comes floating on my thought When on the wildering trammels I am caught Of pensive studies; as the surrounding scheme Fades and dissolves, and coming Hours gleam Visionary the musing realms athwart: That thou and I, all our keen battles fought, Serene and hoar, past touch of withering aught, Shall yet enkindle love, and kiss, and dream A Fancy fair.

My Dearest, be this so! Let us be wrought So to a unity as the Hours, full-fraught With Blight and Bloom, slip by; let us esteem The other in our loves so high-supreme, That thus, Dear Heart, this Vision may be not A Fancy fair.

As is the silver night Upon the sombre sea, In ecstasy of might Art thou to me.

As are the stars beyond Aught compass or control, As glittering diamond, So thy pure soul.

As doth the throstle tell His mystery complete, Such is thy subtle spell, Yet oh! how sweet!

So cam’st thou unto me Love’s mystic wand to wield; Then I, who would be free, Did gladly yield.

Belovëd, hast perceived a throstle tune His liberal wealth of song, ’Mid the leafy coverts, all a lucent noon, Where Audience none had he, yet, desolate, He fluted keen and strong Appreciated only by his mate?

Even so sing I, sequestered and alone. No World’s large ear to woo My measures all upon thy feet are thrown. My Mate thou art, my single Audience thou, Thence never do I sue Vainly for plaudit: is not this enow?

Ah, if that throstle glimpsed a Vision clear, A Vision seeming Truth; If unto him, from Life’s encrusting sphere, An iridescent Beauty had out-twirled, In yon sequestered booth How would he chafe his soul to reach the World!