Babyhood
Algernon Charles Swinburne
A baby shines as bright
If winter or if May be
On eyes that keep in sight
A baby.
Though dark the skies or grey be,
It fills our eyes with light,
If midnight or midday be.
Love hails it, day and night,
The sweetest thing that may be
Yet cannot praise aright
A baby.
II.
All heaven, in every baby born,
All absolute of earthly leaven,
Reveals itself, though man may scorn
All heaven.
Yet man might feel all sin forgiven,
All grief appeased, all pain outworn,
By this one revelation given.
Soul, now forget thy burdens borne:
Heart, be thy joys now seven times seven:
Love shows in light more bright than morn
All heaven.
III.
What likeness may define, and stray not
From truth's exactest way,
A baby's beauty? Love can say not
What likeness may.
The Mayflower loveliest held in May
Of all that shine and stay not
Laughs not in rosier disarray.
Sleek satin, swansdown, buds that play not
As yet with winds that play,
Would fain be matched with this, and may not:
What likeness may?
IV.
Rose, round whose bed
Dawn's cloudlets close,
Earth's brightest-bred
Rose!
No song, love knows,
May praise the head
Your curtain shows.
Ere sleep has fled,
The whole child glows
One sweet live red
Rose.
