Classic Poem

Sweet in a mother's ears
Is the first ripple of her baby's laughter;
And, when her sunny smile has kiss'd its tears,
Sweet is the cooing that comes after.
And as her group of rosy innocents
Around the cradle, girl and boy,
Clap hands for very joy,
And find innumerable merriments
In every ray of light that floods the room
And every wild flower's many-glancing bloom
Surely that mother's heart may be forgiven,
If in her children's voices soft and strong
She hears an echo of the angels' song
And deems it not unheard in heaven.
How holy infancy
With its mysterious glee,
And childhood with its mirth.
Which only One can fully read,
Shall in the Father's kingdom reap the seed
Sown here on earth,
When He who bought them with His blood
Has gather'd lilies in the bud,
Are of those solemn mysteries
Which wait us in the skies.
But this is granted to our longing eyes
Heaven's mansions (so Eternal Love hath will'd)
With children and with child-like saints are fill'd.
And when we dimly faintly realize
The numbers without number,
The multitudinous throng
From every kindred, tribe, and tongue,
Of babes and sucklings gather'd home.
Before they learn'd in paths of sin to roam,
Which in our waking hours and hours of slumber
Pass the pearl gates of Paradise,
What eye can count the wavelets of that sea
Which circles with an ever-deepening flood
Of crystal-clear felicity
The sapphire throne of God?

What though each little voice
Which sings, " Rejoice, rejoice, "
Be in itself a humble thing;
A tiny slender string
Upon the harp of all creation's praise,
A thread of gossamer then only seen
When glancing in the sheen
Of the sun's golden rays?
What if one infant's treble in that chant
Melodiously jubilant
Be but the smallest flute-voiced reed,
Which none would care alone to heed,
Of that vast organ, into which is pour'd
The Spirit of the Omnipresent Lord?
Yet let that trill of song
A thousand times ten thousand multiplied,
Like oceans's bosom gathering the rills
That trickle down the everlasting hills,
Through heaven's eternal arches peal along:
And that majestic tide
Shall be as many waters, or the roll
Of mighty thunderings from pole to pole.

True, there are grand and noble chords
On that great harp of eucharist,
Deep toned and vibrating to loftiest words:
Prophet and patriarch
Who loved to mark
The shadows of the coming Christ;
And, when He came,
Apostle, Martyr, and Evangelist
Who joy'd to suffer shame
And die for His dear name:
And lordly kingly souls of every age
Whose record is on high
In chronicles above the sky,
Unwritten in fame's partial page,
But known by secret signs
God's heroes and God's heroines:
Massive and vast
These pipes of heaven's great organ, cast
True metal in celestial mould,
Responsive to the Spirit's gentlest breath
Or loudest blast,
Still echoing Jehovah saith,
And uttering things new and old
In tones alike submissive and sublime,
That whoso listens learns the mind of God
And glories that the heirs of flesh and blood
The walls of heaven can climb.

Not in dispraise of them
The leaders of our militant array
Remember we the babes of Bethlehem,
Unconscious martyrs for their Lord to-day
But lost in adoration of His love,
Who fashions all
Things great and small
For an eternity of bliss above.
The hills must have their heathery bloom
Of purple and perfume:
The sun must glisten in the dews,
Or morn her diamond brightness lose;
Night could not spare the feeblest gem,
That sparkles in her diadem:
And heaven, with all its choirs
Of saints and angels link'd in tune
And harpers harping on their golden lyres
The name of the Triune,
Needs mid her throug of worshippers
These babes, these innocent choristers
Who ever on the wing
And singing, for they cannot choose but sing
For joy of heart always,
Are in their weakness strong
And perfect heaven's harmonious song
Of everlasting praise.
So, happy mother, quaff
The cup of joy that overflows the brim,
And in the music of thy infant's laugh,
And in the smile upon its cheek
Which whispers more than words can speak,
Catch echoes of the songs of cherubim.
These lights so faint and fugitive
By which we live,
Are no mere idle dreams,
But prophecies, foreshadowings,
Heralds and gleams
Of better things to come,
Where seraphs veil their faces with their wings
In the calm glory of the Father's home.