The Dead Child

All silent is the room,
There is no stir of breath,
Save mine, as in the gloom
I sit alone with Death.

Short life it had, the sweet,
Small babe here lying dead,
With tapers at its feet
And tapers at its head.

Dear little hands, too frail
Their grasp on life to hold;
Dear little mouth so pale,
So solemn, and so cold;

Small feet that nevermore
About the house shall run;
Thy little life is oer!
Thy little journey done!

Sweet infant, dead too soon,
Thou shalt no more behold
The face of sun or moon,
Or starlight clear and cold;

Nor know, where thou art gone,
The mournfulness and mirth
We know who dwell upon
This sad, glad, mad, old earth.

The foolish hopes and fond
That cheat us to the last
Thou shalt not feel; beyond
All these things thou hast passed.

The struggles that upraise
The soul by slow degrees
To God, through weary days,
Thou hast no part in these.

And at thy childish play
Shall we, O little one,
No more behold thee? Nay,
No more beneath the sun.

Deaths sword may well be bared
Gainst those grown old in strife,
But, ah! it might have spared
Thy little unlived life.

Why talk as in despair?
Just God, whose rod I kiss,
Did not make thee so fair
To end thy life at this.

There is some pleasant shore,
Far from His Heaven of Pride,
Where those strong souls who bore
His Cross in bliss abide.

Some place where feeble things,
For Lifes long war too weak,
Young birds with unfledged wings,
Buds nipped by storm-winds bleak,

Young lambs left all forlorn
Beneath a bitter sky,
Meek souls to sorrow born,
Find refuge when they die.

There day is one long dawn,
And from the cups of flowers
Light dew-filled clouds updrawn
Rain soft and perfumed showers.

Child Jesus walketh there
Amidst child-angel bands,
With smiling lips, and fair
White roses in His hands.

I kiss thee on the brow,
I kiss thee on the eyes,
Farewell! Thy home is now
The Childrens Paradise.

Victor James Daley

Victor James Daley, born on 5 September 1858, was an Australian poet noted for his lyrical works. Daley’s publications, including his collection of poems

Victor James Daley

The Poet Care

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

The Little People

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

Poncé De Léon

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

Fragment III - Years After

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

English

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Fragment III - Years After

Fade off the ridges, rosy light,
Fade slowly from the last gray height,
And leave no gloomy cloud to grieve
The heart of this enchanted eve!

All things beneath the still sky seem
Bound by the spell of a sweet dream;
In the dusk forest, dreamingly,
Droops slowly down each plumèd head;
The river flowing softly by
Dreams of the sea; the quiet sea
Dreams of the unseen stars; and I
Am dreaming of the dreamless dead.

The river has a silken sheen,
But red rays of the sunset stain
Its pictures, from the steep shore caught,
Till shades of rock, and fern, and tree
Glow like the figures on a pane
Of some old church by twilight seen,
Or like the rich devices wrought
In mediaeval tapestry.

All lonely in a drifting boat
Through shi...

Victor James Daley

Love-Laurel

(In Memory of Henry Kendall)


Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earths breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.

For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for songs sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.

Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledg...

Victor James Daley

Samuel, Aged Nine Years.

They have left you, little Henry, but they have not left you lonely -
    Brothers' hearts so knit together could not, might not separate dwell.
Fain to seek you in the mansions far away - One lingered only
    To bid those behind farewell!

Gentle Boy! - His childlike nature in most guileless form was moulded,
    And it may be that his spirit woke in glory unaware,
Since so calmly he resigned it, with his hands still meekly folded,
    Having said his evening prayer.

Or - if conscious of that summons - "Speak, O Lord, Thy servant heareth" -
    As one said, whose name they gave him, might his willing answer be,
"Here am I" - like him replying - "At Thy gates my soul appeareth,
    For behold Thou calledst me!"

A deep silence - utter silence, on his earthly home...

Jean Ingelow

A Child Asleep

How he sleepeth! having drunken
Weary childhood's mandragore,
From his pretty eyes have sunken
Pleasures, to make room for more
Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking:
Throw them earthward where they grew.
Dim are such, beside the breaking
Amaranths he looks unto
Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.

Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden
From the paths they sprang beneath,
Now perhaps divinely holden,
Swing against him in a wreath
We may think so from the quickening of his bloom and of his breath.

Vision unto vision calleth,
While the young child dreameth on.
Fair, O dreamer, thee befalleth
With the glory thou hast won!
Darker wert thou in the ...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Days go by

The days go by, the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
The days go by! The days go by!
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in lifes many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms,
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!

Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they,
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?

My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly...

Victor James Daley

Address To The Scholars Of The Village School

I come, ye little noisy Crew,
Not long your pastime to prevent;
I heard the blessing which to you
Our common Friend and Father sent.
I kissed his cheek before he died;
And when his breath was fled,
I raised, while kneeling by his side,
His hand:, it dropped like lead.
Your hands, dear Little-ones, do all
That can be done, will never fall
Like his till they are dead.
By night or day blow foul or fair,
Ne'er will the best of all your train
Play with the locks of his white hair,
Or stand between his knees again.
Here did he sit confined for hours;
But he could see the woods and plains,
Could hear the wind and mark the showers
Come streaming down the streaming panes.
Now stretched beneath his grass-green mound
He rests a prisoner of the ground....

William Wordsworth