Volume 20 — Birth-Days.
Reading edition
“Who are just born, being dead.”
Who weeps when love, a cradled babe, is born?
Rather we bring frankincense, myrrh, and gold,
While softest welcomes from our lips are rolled
To meet the dawning fragrance of a morn
Of checkered being. Even while the thorn
Keeps pace with rosy graces that unfold,
Do we with rapture cry, “Behold, behold,
A heaven-dropped flower our garden to adorn!”
And yet when from our darling fall the years
As from the rose the shrivelled petals rain,
And into newer life the soul again
Springs thornless to the air of purer spheres,
So blinded are we by our bitter pain
We greet the sweeter birth with selfish tears.
[pg 703]