Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/To Marian Asleep
TO MARIAN ASLEEP.
The full moon glimmers still and white, Where yonder shadowy clouds unfold;The stars, like children of the Night, Lie with their little heads of goldOn her dark lap: nor less divine,And brighter, seems your own on mine.
My darling, with your snowy sleep Folded around your dimpled form,Your little breathings calm and deep, Your mother's arms and heart are warm;You wear as lilies in your breastThe dreams that blossom from your rest.
Ah, must your clear eyes see ere long The mist and wreck on sea and land,And that old haunter of all song, The mirage hiding in the sand?And will the dead leaves in the frostTell you of song and summer lost?
And shall you hear the ghastly tales From the slow, solemn lips of Time—Of Wrong that wins, of Right that fails; Of trampled Want and gorgeous Crime;Of Splendour's glare in lighted roomsAnd Famine's moan in outer glooms
Of armies in their red eclipse That mingle on the smoking plain';Of storms that dash our mighty ships With silks and spices through the main;Of what it costs to climb or fall—Of Death's great Shadow ending all?
But, baby Marian, do I string The dark with darker rhymes for you,Forgetting that you came in Spring, The child of sun and bloom and dew,And that I kissed, still fresh to-day,The rosiest bud of last year's May?
Forgive me, pretty one: I know, Whatever sufferings onward lie,Christ wore his crown of thorns below To gain his crown of light on high;And when the lamp's frail flame is gone,Look up: the stars will still shine on.