Babyhood

I.     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.