# Poems and Ballads (second series)/A Birth-Song

Previously printed in The Athenæum, February 19th, 1876, pp. 263-264.
A BIRTH-SONG.
(For Olivia Frances Madox Rossetti, born September 20, 1875.)
Out of the dark sweet sleep Where no dreams laugh or weep Borne through bright gates of birth Into the dim sweet light Where day still dreams of night While heaven takes form on earth, White rose of spirit and flesh, red lily of love, What note of song have we Fit for the birds and thee, Fair nestling couched beneath the mother‑dove?
Nay, in some more divine Small speechless song of thine
Some news too good for words, Heart‑hushed and smiling, we Might hope to have of thee, The youngest of God's birds, If thy sweet sense might mix itself with ours, If ours might understand The language of thy land, Ere thine become the tongue of mortal hours:
Ere thy lips learn too soon Their soft first human tune, Sweet, but less sweet than now, And thy raised eyes to read Glad and good things indeed, But none so sweet as thou: Ere thought lift up their flower‑soft lids to see What life and love on earth Bring thee for gifts at birth, But none so good as thine who hast given us thee:
Now, ere thy sense forget The heaven that fills it yet, Now, sleeping or awake, If thou couldst tell, or we Ask and be heard of thee, For love's undying sake, From thy dumb lips divine and bright mute speech Such news might touch our ear That then would burn to hear Too high a message now for man's to reach.
Ere the gold hair of corn Had withered wast thou born, To make the good time glad; The time that but last year Fell colder than a tear On hearts and hopes turned sad, High hopes and hearts requickening in thy dawn, Even theirs whose life‑springs, child,
Filled thine with life and smiled, But then wept blood for half their own withdrawn.
If death and birth be one, And set with rise of sun, And truth with dreams divine, Some word might come with thee From over the still sea Deep hid in shade or shine, Crossed by the crossing sails of death and birth, Word of some sweet new thing Fit for such lips to bring, Some word of love, some afterthought of earth.
If love be strong as death, By what so natural breath As thine could this be said? By what so lovely way Could love send word to say He lives and is not dead?
Such word alone were fit for only thee, If his and thine have met Where spirits rise and set, His whom we see not, thine whom scarce we see:
His there new‑born, as thou New‑born among us now; His, here so fruitful‑souled, Now veiled and silent here, Now dumb as thou last year, A ghost of one year old: If lights that change their sphere in changing meet, Some ray might his not give To thine who wast to live, And make thy present with his past life sweet?
Let dreams that laugh or weep, All glad and sad dreams, sleep; Truth more than dreams is dear.
Let thoughts that change and fly, Sweet thoughts and swift, go by; More than all thought is here. More than all hope can forge or memory feign The life that in our eyes, Made out of love's life, lies, And flower‑like fed with love for sun and rain.
Twice royal in its root The sweet small olive‑shoot Here set in sacred earth; Twice dowered with glorious grace From either heaven‑born race First blended in its birth; Fair God or Genius of so fair an hour, For love of either name Twice crowned, with love and fame, Guard and be gracious to the fair‑named flower.
October 19, 1875.