“What has he done that he is stricken down? 
  O it is hard to see him sink and fade,
When I, that counted him my dear life’s crown,
  So willingly have worked while he has played;
That he might sleep, have risen, come storm, come heat,
And thankfully would fast that he might eat.”

My God, how short our happy days appear! 
  How long the sorrowful!  They thought it long,
The sultry morn that brought such evil cheer,
  And sat, and wished, and sighed for evensong;
It came, and cooling wafts about him stirred,
Yet when they spoke he answered not a word.

“Take heart,” they cried, but their sad hearts sank low
  When he would moan and turn his restless head,
And wearily the lagging morns would go,
  And nights, while they sat watching by his bed,
Until a storm came up with wind and rain,
And lightning ran along the troubled main.

Over their heads the mighty thunders brake,
  Leaping and tumbling down from rock to rock,
Then burst anew and made the cliffs to quake
  As they were living things and felt the shock;
The waiting sea to sob as if in pain,
And all the midnight vault to ring again.

A lamp was burning in the mariner’s cave,
  But the blue lightning flashes made it dim;
And when the mother heard those thunders rave,
  She took her little child to cherish him;
She took him in her arms, and on her breast
Full wearily she courted him to rest,

And soothed him long until the storm was spent,
  And the last thunder peal had died away,
And stars were out in all the firmament. 
  Then did he cease to moan, and slumbering lay,
While in the welcome silence, pure and deep,
The care-worn parents sweetly fell asleep.

And in a dream, enwrought with fancies thick,
  The mother thought she heard the rock-doves coo
(She had forgotten that her child was sick),
  And she went forth their morning meal to strew;
Then over all the cliff with earnest care
She sought her child, and lo, he was not there!

But she was not afraid, though long she sought
  And climbed the cliff, and set her feet in grass,
Then reached a river, broad and full, she thought,
  And at its brink he sat.  Alas! alas! 
For one stood near him, fair and undefiled,
An innocent, a marvellous man-child.

In garments white as wool, and O, most fair,
  A rainbow covered him with mystic light;
Upon the warmed grass his feet were bare,
  And as he breathed, the rainbow in her sight
In passions of clear crimson trembling lay,
With gold and violet mist made fair the day.

Her little life! she thought, his little hands
  Were full of flowers that he did play withal;
But when he saw the boy o’ the golden lands,
  And looked him in the face, he let them fall,
Held through a rapturous pause in wistful wise
To the sweet strangeness of those keen child-eyes.