A public haunt they found her in:
    She lay asleep, a lovely child;
    The only thing left undefiled
Where all things else bore taint of sin.

Her charming contours fixed in clay
    The universal law suspend,
    And turn Time’s chariot back,...

To put new shingles on old roofs;
  To give old women wadded skirts;
To treat premonitory coughs
  With seasonable flannel shirts;
To soothe the stings of poverty
  And keep the jackal from the door,—
These are the works that occupy
  The...

Without him still this whirling earth
  Might spin its course around the sun,
And death still dog the heels of birth,
  And life be lived, and duty done.

Without him let the rapt earth dree
  What doom its twin rotations earn;
Whither or whence,...

A Public haunt they found her in:
    She lay asleep, a lovely child;
    The only thing left undefiled
Where all things else bore taint of sin.

Her charming contours fixed in clay
    The universal law suspend,
    And turn Time’s chariot back,...