Poems (Linn)/Unborn
For works with similar titles, see Unborn.
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 scornEarth'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 forlornThrough 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.