Our Willie

'T was merry Christmas when he came,Our little boy beneath the sod;And brighter burned the Christmas flame,And merrier sped the Christmas game,Because within the house there layA shape as tiny as a fay--The Christmas gift of God!In wreaths and garlands on the wallsThe holly hung its ruby balls,The mistletoe its pearls;And a Christmas tree's fantastic fruitsWoke laughter like a choir of flutesFrom happy boys and girls.For the mirth, which else had swelled as shrillAs a school let loose to its errant will,Was softened by the thought,That in a dim hushed room aboveA mother's pains in a mother's loveWere only just forgot.The jest, the tale, the toast, the glee,All took a sober tone;We spoke of the babe upstairs, as weHeld festival for him alone.When the bells rang in the Christmas morn,It scarcely seemed a sin to sayThat they rang because that babe was born,Not less than for the sacred day.Ah! Christ forgive us for the crimeWhich drowned the memories of the timeIn a merely mortal bliss!We owned the error when the mirthOf another Christmas lit the hearthOf every home but this.When, in that lonely burial-ground,With every Christmas sight and soundRemoved or shunned, we keptA mournful Christmas by the moundWhere little Willie slept!

Ah, hapless mother! darling wife!I might say nothing more,And the dull cold world would holdThe story of that precious lifeAs amply told!Shall we, shall you and I, beforeThat world's unsympathetic eyesLay other relics from our storeOf tender memories?What could it know of the joy and loveThat throbbed and smiled and wept aboveAn unresponsive thing?And who could share the ecstatic thrillWith which we watched the upturned billOf our bird at its living spring?Shall we tell how in the time gone by,Beneath all changes of the sky,And in an ordinary homeAmid the city's din,Life was to us a crystal dome,Our babe the flame therein?Ah! this were jargon on the mart;And though some gentle friend,And many and many a suffering heart,Would weep and comprehend,Yet even these might fail to seeWhat we saw daily in the child--Not the mere creature undefiled,But the winged cherub soon to be.That wandering hand which seemed to reachAt angel finger-tips,And that murmur like a mystic speechUpon the rosy lips,That something in the serious faceHolier than even its infant grace,And that rapt gaze on empty space,Which made us, half believing, say,"Ah, little wide-eyed seer! who knowsBut that for you this chamber glowsWith stately shapes and solemn shows?"Which touched us, too, with vague alarms,Lest in the circle of our armsWe held a being less akinTo his parents in a world of sinThan to beings not of clay:How could we speak in human phrase,Of such scarce earthly traits and ways,What would not seemA doting dream,In the creed of these sordid days?No! let us keepDeep, deep,In sorrowing heart and aching brain,This story hidden with the pain,Which since that blue October nightWhen Willie vanished from our sight,Must haunt us even in our sleep.In the gloom of the chamber where he died,And by that grave which, through our care,From Yule to Yule of every year,Is made like Spring to bloom;And where, at times, we catch the sighAs of an angel floating nigh,Who longs but has not power to tellThat in that violet-shrouded cellLies nothing better than the shellWhich he had cast aside--By that sweet grave, in that dark room,We may weave at will for each other's ear,Of that life, and that love, and that early doom,The tale which is shadowed here:To us alone it will always beAs fresh as our own misery;But enough, alas! for the world is said,In the brief "Here lieth" of the dead!