Olive

I     Who may praise her?     Eyes where midnight shames the sun,     Hair of night and sunshine spun,     Woven of dawn's or twilight's loom,     Radiant darkness, lustrous gloom,     Godlike childhood's flowerlike bloom,     None may praise aright, nor sing     Half the grace wherewith like spring     Love arrays her. II     Love untold     Sings in silence, speaks in light     Shed from each fair feature, bright     Still from heaven, whence toward us, now     Nine years since, she deigned to bow     Down the brightness of her brow,     Deigned to pass through mortal birth:     Reverence calls her, here on earth,     Nine years old. III     Love's deep duty,     Even when love transfigured grows     Worship, all too surely knows     How, though love may cast out fear,     Yet the debt divine and dear     Due to childhood's godhead here     May by love of man be paid     Never; never song be made     Worth its beauty. IV     Nought is all     Sung or said or dreamed or thought     Ever, set beside it; nought     All the love that man may give     Love whose prayer should be, "Forgive!"     Heaven, we see, on earth may live;     Earth can thank not heaven, we know,     Save with songs that ebb and flow,     Rise and fall. V     No man living,     No man dead, save haply one     Now gone homeward past the sun,     Ever found such grace as might     Tune his tongue to praise aright     Children, flowers of love and light,     Whom our praise dispraises: we     Sing, in sooth, but not as he     Sang thanksgiving. VI     Hope that smiled,     Seeing her new-born beauty, made     Out of heaven's own light and shade,     Smiled not half so sweetly: love,     Seeing the sun, afar above,     Warm the nest that rears the dove,     Sees, more bright than moon or sun,     All the heaven of heavens in one     Little child. VII     Who may sing her?     Wings of angels when they stir     Make no music worthy her:     Sweeter sound her shy soft words     Here than songs of God's own birds     Whom the fire of rapture girds     Round with light from love's face lit;     Hands of angels find no fit     Gifts to bring her. VIII     Babes at birth     Wear as raiment round them cast,     Keep as witness toward their past,     Tokens left of heaven; and each,     Ere its lips learn mortal speech,     Ere sweet heaven pass on pass reach,     Bears in undiverted eyes     Proof of unforgotten skies     Here on earth. IX     Quenched as embers     Quenched with flakes of rain or snow     Till the last faint flame burns low,     All those lustrous memories lie     Dead with babyhood gone by:     Yet in her they dare not die:     Others, fair as heaven is, yet,     Now they share not heaven, forget:     She remembers.