[Editor: This poem by Mary Eliza Fullerton was published in Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics (1908).]
The Baby
Fresh from the gulfs he came to waiting arms,
Magnificently small, supremely weak;
And love he finds, who lovers cannot seek;
And all his answer to the world’s alarms
Is coiled within his little shell-pink palms,
And in his lips whose murmurs yet shall speak
The thunders of revolt, renunciations meek;
And o’er him blow the sweet immortal balms.
The cunning snares are ready for his feet,
Mirages dance to kindle up his eyes;
But at the choice no fantasy can cheat
The child by hidden unctions rendered wise,
The balms of Paradise had made him sweet
Or ever he was drawn from Paradise.
Source:
Mary E. Fullerton, Moods and Melodies: Sonnets and Lyrics, Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian, 1908, p. 33
Editor’s notes:
o’er = (archaic) over (pronounced the same as “oar”, “or”, and “ore”)
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