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?