Death found strange beauty on that polish’d brow,
And dash’d it out. There was a tint of rose
On cheek and lip. He touched the veins with ice,
And the rose faded.
Forth from those blue eyes
There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt
Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence
Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound
The silken fringes of those curtaining lids
For ever.
There had been a murmuring sound,
With which the babe would claim its mother’s ear,
Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set
The seal of silence.
But there beam’d a smile,
So fix’d, so holy, from that cherub brow,
Death gazed, and left it there. He dar’d not steal
The signet-ring of heaven.
From: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/death-infant
Date: 1824
By: Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865)
