The times., 1898-05-22
CURRENT VERSE
On an Infant Who Was horn, WAS
baptized and Died on the
Same Day.

On an Infant, Who Was horn, Was
baptized and Died on the
Same Day.
How vast thou made to pass.
By short transition, from the womb
Unto that other darkness OF thy tomb,
Babe. o Brother to the grass
For like the herb, so thou art born
At early morn;
And thy little life Las flowed away
Before the flowing day;
Thy willing soul hath struggled, and is free;
And all OF thee that dieth
white and waxen image Hsth
Upon the knee.
s'Oh, whittier hast thou fed,
From the warm, joyous world remoyed?'
Might one of old have questioned
OF his dear and dead;
Painting and straining for relief
Unto passion and hopeless grief.
"Whither, thou in vain beloved.
Whittier hast thou borne
The smiles and kisses, that were gathered up
In thee, for her that bore thee, now forloTn,
As sweets in-the wild roses cup
Before the mornT'
'1s that thy feeble cry
But just beyond the threshold OF the graye2
Art thou yet waiting in the voiceless hsll
OF Dis, hearst the mourning waters fall?
Where mad and shrieking spirits rave.
Or dost thou slunber take
BY the deep, CLASSY and translucent lake,
Through q chill, e1haustless night
Apart from woe, yet senseless Of delightF'
".
There was no audible reply.
Only faint. far echo, 10 that cry
OF natural yearning. But our task
Is lighter far; and when We ask,
is all thy fate as dark
As in the pail upon the limbs?
Is there no Sun above, no saviour ark
That the black sea swims,
And bears the children loved Of God and blest,
Unto the land OF rest?'
We hear voice from the high seats Of bliss,
That answers, Yes"
Yes! Narrow was the space
Whereby life ran its hurried race
Like affrighted by the far-of glare
OF the worlds pleasures and alarms
That from the sin, the sorrow and the care
Fled 10 seek shelter ia the arms
OF his first Father and had rest
Upon his breast.
Oh, joy that on the narrow space
There IS no spot of acted sin,
No burning trace,
As where evil thoughts have been.
Thou hast not known how hard it is 70 kill
The inveterate strength Of self-desire,
And never did thine unexpanded VIII
Gather up conscious energies 70 move
Against the God Of love.
The volume Of this life was soon unrolled.
But the hours of thy small earthly store,
Although no more
Than might be numbered AT the dawn Of sense
By q child's first intelligence,
Yet were their single moments told
To them that stood around
By q faint moaning sound,
Repeated with that lRboring breath
That ushers death,
Instead Of the serene and soft pulsation
OF an infants respiration.
VIII
How small the tribute, then, Of human pain
The eternal wisdom did ordain
Thy migrant spirit should be bound to pay
Upon its way
Unto fruition of the mortal prize;
Purchased for thee by rain Of scalding tears
By agony indgn,
BY woes how heavier far than thine,
Through more protTacted years
And deeper sighS-
One evening thou vert not,
The next thou vert and vert in bliss,
And vert in bliss forever, and IS this
50 desolate lot
To he the theme of unconsoled sorrow
Because Thy first tomorrow
Thou vert ordained vest 70 wear
Not made like OF clay,
But woven with the beams OF elearest day,
cheTub fair!
For on that one, that well-spent morn.
Unconscious thou vert borne
TO wash the baptisrnal stream,
To gain thy title 70 the glorious name
Which doth unbar the gates OF Paradise
And thou vert taken home
Before the peril that might eome
By thy parents human pride
In thy soft t-beaming eye;
But not before
Their blessings on thee they might pour
Ana pray that if so early bloomed the tide,
Yet God might speed thee on thy path
Through the void realms OF Death
And Christ reserve thee n his bosom peace
Til pain and sin shall cease;
TIL earthly shows shall hy, and they
Shall wake to life with thee from clay.
We live amid the tumult and the stress
OF fierce, eddying fight,
And 20 our mortal sight
Our fate is trembling in the balancesi
And even il hath seemed
The Tempter at the neither scale
Might over Love prevail
But thy dear faith can never fail,
Thou art redeemed
The shadoyy forms Of doubt and change
Athwart thy tranquil fate more may range,
Nor speck its lucid path
With tokens and remembrances OF death,
XII
Then flow, We blameless tears. q while,
little while ye may
The natural craving TO beguile
This task is yours; with you
Shall peace be born anew
And sorrow glide away.
Oh, happy they in whose remembered lot
There should appea darker spot
Than this, of holy groundl
This, where, within the short and narrow bound
From morn eVeufldP.
In quick, successive train,
An infant lived and died
And lived again.
William E. Gladstone.
A Toast.
To the Crystal of Desire.
To the Wheel OF Mystic Birth,
Child of the Mine and Fire
Drink, Riders of the EARTH
To the hum of the whirring wire
In the rush of the air disturbed;
To the purr OF the spurning tire
And the speed OF the steel uncurbed.
To the stroke Of the corded muscle,
And the rise of the warming thigh;
To the lift and drop OF the hills we top,
And the woodlands rolling by.
To the deep exhilaration,
To the Drawn, and the touch that guides;
To the freedom OF creation
The world is his who rides.
To the spindrift nists of morning,
To noon, of the golden light;
To the tints that fade, and the mystic shade,
To the Noon, and the mottled night.
To the air, to the winds that buffet,
And the Will to which they bend;
To life, and the way rough it,
To the roads that never end
To the vilest and the velvet,
To the wind-hung leaves toss;
To the birds that race at a breathing pace,
IL -