Poems (Linn)/Unborn

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4649350Poems — UnbornEdith Willis Linn

UNBORN.
KINGS in their pride have bowed before him,
And heads that boasted the circling bay;
His name is rung in prayer and praises,
His memory fades not day by day;
With the wide world's sorrow and sin unworn,—
The little baby that died unborn.

When others fail us, when friends are faithless,
When selfishness reigns like a king supreme,
When we are weary of working, waiting,
When heaven grows dimmer and love a dream,
We think of that which can put to scorn
Earth's losses,—the child that died unborn.

We can feel about us the dimpled fingers
And dream how lovely that mouth had smiled;
All we have failed of doing, being,
Had lived again in that holy child;
Heaven's grace had lightened a world forlorn
Through life of the child that died unborn.

Sum of such longing, such prayer, such passion!
Hope of our failure, our wrong, our pain!
Dream that lifted many a burden,
That speaks to us of eternal gain;
Our angel, sin-untouched, untorn,
The little baby that died unborn.