Poems (Craik)/My Christian Name

by Dinah Maria Craik

MY CHRISTIAN NAME.

Y Christian name, my Christian name,
 I never hear it now:
None have the right to utter it,
 'T is lost, I scarce know how.
My worldly name the world speaks loud;
 Thank God for well-earned fame!
But silence sits at my cold hearth,—
 I have no household name.

My Christian name, my Christian name,
 It has an uncouth sound;
My mother chose it out of those
 In Bible pages found:
Mother, whose accents made half sweet
 What else I held in shame,
Dost thou remember up in heaven .
 My poor lost Christian name?

Brothers and sisters, mockers oft
 Of the quaint name I bore,
Would I could leap back years, to hear
 Ye shout it out once more!
One speaks it still, in written lines,
 The last fraternal claim:
But the wide seas between us drown
 Its sound—my Christian name.

I had a long dream once. Her voice
 Might breathe the homely word,
And make it music—as love makes
 Any name, said or heard.
O, dumb, dumb lips!—O, silent heart!
 Though it is no one's blame:
Now while I live I 'll never hear
 Her speak my Christian name.

God send her bliss, and send me rest!
 If her white footsteps calm
Should track my bleeding feet, God make
 To them each blood-drop balm!
Peace—peace. O mother, put thou forth
 Thine elder, holier claim,
And the first word I hear in heaven
 May be my Christian name.