Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/Calling the Dead
CALLING THE DEAD.
My little child, so sweet a voice might wakeSo sweet a sleeper for so sweet a sake;Calling your buried brother back to youYou laugh and listen—till I listen too.
. . . Why does he listen? It may be to hearSounds too divine to reach my troubled ear;Why does he laugh? It may be he can seeThe face that only tears can hide from me.
Poor baby faith, so foolish or so wise:—The name I shape out of forlornest criesHe speaks as with a bird's or blossom's breath.How fair the knowledge is that knows not Death!
. . . Ah, fools and blind!—through all the piteous yearsSearchers of stars and graves—how many seers,Calling the dead, and seeking for a sign,Have laughed and listened, like this child of mine?