UNBORN
Straiked at the gates of dawn by Custom's curse, Still, in the throbbing of perpetual life,Pulseless and laid aside like last year's roseWhich held such scarlet promise in the bud,Soul of my very soul, blood of your blood, A silent outcome of delicious strife.
This kiss might make the blossom of his eyes, This touch might frame the petal of his lip,This lingering loving, shape his spirit's flame,This be his legacy of your clear brain,And this bring back my babyhood again, Your life-sea float once more a long-lost ship.
Yet—so Convention weaves the winding-sheet, We find him only when some sun-browned childLaughs on the yellow beaches, or the waveKisses the dimples in a pearly flank:Some other woman's babe, on sand-warm bank Our son, that missed us somewhere in the wild.
We find him in the blue of summer skies, The gum-crowned hill-tops by the granite tors,The golden pebbles in the shallow stream,Some sweet elusive fairy of the green,He pipes, Pan-like, the loved and the unseen, So truly mine and yet so nobly yours!
