To a Child During Sickness

  SLEEP breathes at last from out thee,     My little patient boy;   And balmy rest about thee     Smooths off the day’s annoy.       I sit me down, and think     Of all thy winning ways; Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink,     That I had less to praise.   Thy sidelong pillowed meekness;     Thy thanks to all that aid;   Thy heart, in pain and weakness,     Of fancied faults afraid;       The little trembling hand     That wipes thy quiet tears,— These, these are things that may demand     Dread memories for years.   Sorrows I ’ve had, severe ones,     I will not think of now;   And calmly, midst my dear ones,     Have wasted with dry brow;       But when thy fingers press     And pat my stooping head, I cannot bear the gentleness,—     The tears are in their bed.   Ah, first-born of thy mother,     When life and hope were new;   Kind playmate of thy brother,     Thy sister, father too;       My light, where’er I go;     My bird, when prison-bound; My hand-in-hand companion—No,     My prayers shall hold thee round.   To say, “He has departed”—     “His voice”—“his face”—is gone,   To feel impatient-hearted,     Yet feel we must bear on,—       Ah, I could not endure     To whisper of such woe, Unless I felt this sleep insure     That it will not be so.   Yes, still he ’s fixed, and sleeping!     This silence too the while,—   Its very hush and creeping     Seem whispering us a smile;       Something divine and dim     Seems going by one’s ear, Like parting wings of cherubim,     Who say, “We ’ve finished here.”