# A Little Child's Monument/Nature and the Dead

London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., pages 46–50
"He is made one with nature."—Shelley.
I.
I mused below dark everlasting rocks, Hearing the circling happy seamew cry; I listened to the gentle water-shocks Of cool clear emerald, how peacefully Wandering thro' cavern hall, or labyrinth Worn in the cliff's heart! flowering seathrift Sang to blithe bees, and breezes; the red plinth Of ocean-palace pillar in a lift And fall of playful sunny wavelets glowed; Until I floated on the hyaline Into a mystic ocean fay's abode, Hung with pale sea-grape, walled with coralline, Gemmed with live jade and garnet, or adorning Of gleaming opal-hearted passion-flowers, Living, blue, crimson, as a radiant morning; While wavelight all the rocky temple dowers, Golden, blood-jasper, grey, with woven smiles Quavering musical, 'mid velvet piles
Wine-dark, fern-tufted; I am afloat in froth, That seethes and sparkles on a heaving clear Sunned chrysoprase; hued like a burnet-moth Here the cliff shows, shell-crusted wholly here With shells, bathing their lucid filaments In lapsing crystal; among twilit grots, Fulfilling strange mysterious intents, I hear far waters commune in dim spots With weird rock-comrade, monster fish, or seal, Or slumberous anemones that feel. Through yon chaotic arch of vasty height, Of grand proportion, hewn by Titan hand Of turbulent tempest, flying in blue light Appear white sails, and capes of basking land, Rich hazy brown; here towering dread forms Of silent crag brood awful and alone: These have absorbed all terror of the storms, That wear, combat, caress their writhen stone.
II.
My soul said then to Earth and Air: "How can I deem that ye would dare To smile and dally, if ye did The deed of darkness? holding hid My stolen child, my withered blossom, Plucked, trampled, dead in your dark bosom! If at the heart of your mad glee
My living child lay lifelessly! And all your horrible vampire life With his precious blood were rife! If your false innocence but rave Over a murdered infant's grave! And all his wondrous soul blown out, Your idiot salt billows flout My child's pale corpse within your cave! And this the end of him who lent Blue heaven to my dull firmament! Of him, whose holy opening flower Claimed eternity for dower! Who from our green lowly sod With wee white hands reached up to God, Yea, talked familiarly with Him, As with myself, ere earth grew dim With his strange silence, and the loss That stole from beauty all her gloss, And charm for ever! left the world A faded mouldering banner furled, Once thundering glorious, impearled, Aflame with morning! Mockery! Break me! or drown me! let me die! Curse your fair bodies with no heart! Ah me! Alas! When I depart, Shattered upon your iron rocks, Stifled in wild watershocks, Shall I not find within the gloom,
There in the darkness of my doom, A dewy dawn of one who left Me moaning, when my heart was cleft?— A sweet auroral rising of my sun, Who went out unaware, before his course was run, And I lay darkling ere my day was well begun?"
III.
But in a tone remonstrant, mild, Like one who soothes a fevered child, Methought fair Earth and Sky and Sea Responded very quietly: "Do you, then, our poor brother, ask If all we wear the traitor's mask On this our festival of gladness? We pity, pardoning, your madness! He is not dead whom you so cherish! How may a human spirit perish? Spirits! ye dream a lovely dream, And call it what we only seem! Ye call us Nature: we are angels, Who reveal profound evangels, Tho' you may fathom not their glory, Beholding, as in sacred story, Men like trees walking: so God gives Maturing sense to all that lives. But once ye dwelt jn Eden—then
We were gods who dwelt with men; Your antenatal sphere remember; Clear the earth-ash from the ember! Spirits immortal! all we live and move In One, whose name is the Eternal Love. Yea, with flame-clasp of suffering Christ's own divine embraces cling! Your little one is only gone up higher, Burns now, and glows with more seraphic fire: For this we bound him to the funeral pyre! Yea, folded closer, closer to our breast. His accents reach you from our radiant rest, Mingling with ours! Ah! with sweet surprise Awake! and hear! believe! and recognize!"