3. Holy Innocents
To-day I keep a feast, with red and white—
The red blood and the snow-white innocence
Of little souls who had their recompense
Before they learned the horrors of the fight.
I see them running in their gardens gay,
They snatch the colours of the rainbow’s flame,
And throw the stars about in childish game,
And pull the clouds to pieces for their play.
But these are not the throng the king did slay,
The babes for whom dark Rachael’s head is bowed—
’Tis not for them her wailing rings so loud;
Other and holier Innocents are they.
These are the little ones who never wrought
Love’s royalest wonder in a mother’s eyes,
Who never brought a tender warm surprise
With groping lips to breasts till then unsought.
These are the fruit of hundredfold desires,
Ten thousand dreams begot this laughing band,
They fill the cities of a promised land—
Long promised, but not given—lost in fires.
These are the children I had hoped to show
The secret of this life, and all its love—
But they are playing with my dreams above,
While I plunge on through my dead hopes below.
Saved—Oh perhaps from much that I must brave—
I worship you, sweet saints!—oh pray for me!
The little children that shall never be—
The little children I shall never have.