Andromeda, and Other Poems/The Baby Sings not on its Mother's Breast
THE baby sings not on its mother's breast;
Nor nightingales who nestle side by side:
Nor I by thine: but let us only part,
Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still,
As having uttered all, must speak again—
Oh stunted thoughts! Oh chill and fettered rhyme!
Yet my great bliss, though still entirely blest,
Losing its proper home, can find no rest:
So, like a child who whiles away the time
With dance and carol till the eventide,
Watching its mother homeward through the glen;
Or nightingale, who, sitting far apart,
Tells to his listening mate within the nest
The wonder of his star-entrancèd heart
Till all the wakened woodlands laugh and thrill—
Forth all my being bubbles into song;
And rings aloft, not smooth, yet clear and strong.
Nor nightingales who nestle side by side:
Nor I by thine: but let us only part,
Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still,
As having uttered all, must speak again—
Oh stunted thoughts! Oh chill and fettered rhyme!
Yet my great bliss, though still entirely blest,
Losing its proper home, can find no rest:
So, like a child who whiles away the time
With dance and carol till the eventide,
Watching its mother homeward through the glen;
Or nightingale, who, sitting far apart,
Tells to his listening mate within the nest
The wonder of his star-entrancèd heart
Till all the wakened woodlands laugh and thrill—
Forth all my being bubbles into song;
And rings aloft, not smooth, yet clear and strong.