Select poems / by L.H. Sigourney [electronic resource]

BAPTISM OF AN INFANT AT ITS MOTHER'S FUNERAL.

WHENCE is that trembling of a father's hand, Who to the man of God doth bring his babe, Asking the seal of Christ?—Why doth the voice That uttereth o'er its brow the Triune Name Falter with sympathy?—And most of all, Why is yon coffin-lid a pedestal For the baptismal font? Again I asked. But all the answer was those gushing tears Which stricken hearts do weep. For there she lay, The fair, young mother in that coffin-bed, Mourned by the funeral train. The heart that beat With trembling tenderness, at every touch Of love or pity, flushed the cheek no more. —Tears were thy baptism, thou unconscious one, And Sorrow took thee at the gate of life, Into her cradle. Thou may'st never know The welcome of a nursing mother's kiss,

When lost in wondering ecstacy, she marks A thrilling growth of new affections spread Fresh greenness o'er her soul. Thou may'st not share Her hallowed teachings, nor suffuse her eye With joy, as the first germs of infant thought Unfold, in lisping sound. Yet may'st thou walk Even as she walked, breathing on all around The warmth of high affections purified, And sublimated, by that Spirit's power Which makes the soul fit temple for its God. —So shalt thou, in a brighter world, behold That countenance which the cold grave did veil Thus early from thy sight, and the first tone Bearing a mother's welcome to thine ear Be wafted from the minstrelsy of Heaven.