TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS DROWNED

Smiling river, smiling river, On thy bosom sunbeams play; Though they’re fleeting, and retreating, Thou hast more deceit than they. In thy channel, in thy channel, Choked with ooze and gravelly stones, Deep immersed, and unhearsed, Lies young Edward’s corse; his bones Ever whitening, ever whitening, As thy waves against them dash; What thy torrent, in the current, Swallow’d, now it helps to wash. As if senseless, as if senseless Things had feeling in this case; What so blindly and unkindly It destroy’d, it now does grace.