Mysterious truths, and not explore. 
Enough for him, in after-times,
When he shall read these artless rhymes,
If, looking back upon this day,
With quiet conscience, he can say
“I have in part redeem’d the pledge
Of my Baptismal privilege;
And more and more will strive to flee
All which my Sponsors kind did then renounce for me.”

          ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN

(1827)

          I saw where in the shroud did lurk
          A curious frame of Nature’s work. 
          A flow’ret crushed in the bud,
          A nameless piece of Babyhood,
          Was in a cradle-coffin lying;
          Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying;
          So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
          For darker closets of the tomb! 
          She did but ope an eye, and put
          A clear beam forth, then strait up shut
          For the long dark:  ne’er more to see
          Through glasses of mortality. 
          Riddle of destiny, who can show
          What thy short visit meant, or know
          What thy errand here below? 
          Shall we say, that Nature blind
          Check’d her hand, and changed her mind,
          Just when she had exactly wrought
          A finish’d pattern without fault? 
          Could she flag, or could she tire,
          Or lack’d she the Promethean fire
          (With her nine moons’ long workings sicken’d)
          That should thy little limbs have quicken’d? 
          Limbs so firm, they seem’d to assure
          Life of health, and days mature: 
          Woman’s self in miniature! 
          Limbs so fair, they might supply
          (Themselves now but cold imagery)
          The sculptor to make Beauty by. 
          Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry,
          That babe, or mother, one must die;
          So in mercy left the stock,
          And cut the branch; to save the shock
          Of young years widow’d; and the pain,
          When Single State comes back again
          To the lone man who, ’reft of wife,
          Thenceforward drags a maimed life? 
          The economy of Heaven is dark;
          And wisest clerks have miss’d the mark,
          Why Human Buds, like this, should fall,
          More brief than fly ephemeral,
          That has his day; while shrivel’d crones
          Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
          And crabbed use the conscience sears
          In sinners of an hundred years. 
          Mother’s prattle, mother’s kiss,
          Baby fond, thou ne’er wilt miss. 
          Rites, which custom does impose,
          Silver bells and baby clothes;
          Coral redder than those lips,
          Which pale death did late eclipse;
          Music framed for infants’ glee,