A Voice.
Only a little child!
Stone cold upon a bed!
Is it for him you wail so wild,
As though the very world were dead?
Arise, arise!
Threaten not the tranquil skies!
Do not all things die?
'Tis but a faded flower!
Dear lives exhale perpetually
With every fleeting hour.
Rachael forever weeps her little ones;
Forever Rizpah mourneth her slain sons.
Arise, arise!
Threaten not the tranquil skies!
Only a little child!
Long generations pass.
Behold them flash a moment wild
With stormlight, a pale headlong mass
Of foam, into unfathomable gloom!
Worlds and shed leaves have all one doom.
Arise, arise!
Threaten not the tranquil skies.
Should earth's tremendous shade
Spare only you and yours?
Who regardeth empires fade
Untroubled, who impassive pours
Human joy, a mere spilt water,
Revels red with human slaughter!
Arise, arise!
Threaten not the tranquil skies.
Another Voice.
… Only a little child!
He was the world to me.
Pierced to the heart, insane, defiled,
All holiest hope! foul mockery,
Childhood's innocent mirth and rest.
There is no God;
The earth is virtue's funeral sod!
Another Voice.
Only a little child!
Ah! then, who brought him here?
Who made him loving, fair, and mild,
And to your soul so dear?
His lowly spirit seemed divine,
Burning in a heavenly shrine.
Arise, arise!
With pardon for the tranquil skies.
Only a little child!
Who sleeps upon God's heart!
Jesus blessed our undefiled,
Whom no power avails to part
From the life of him who died
And liveth, whatsoe'er betide!
Whose are eyes
Tranquiller than starlit skies?
Only a little child!
For whom all things are;
Spring and summer, winter wild,
Sea and earth, and every star,
Time, the void, pleasure and pain.
Hell and heaven, loss and gain.
Life and death are his, and he
Rests in God's eternity.
Arise, arise!
Love is holy, true, and wise,
Mirrored in the tranquil skies.