Lo, as the acorn to the oak,
  As well-heads to the river’s height,
As to the chicken the moist yolk,
  As to high noon the day’s first white—­
Such is the baby to the man. 
  There, straddling one red arm and leg,
Lay my last work, in length a span,
  Half hatched, and conscious of the egg. 
A creditable child, I hoped;
  And half a score of joys to be
Through sunny lengths of prospect sloped
  Smooth to the bland futurity. 
O, fate surpassing other dooms,
  O, hope above all wrecks of time! 
O, light that fills all vanquished glooms,
  O, silent song o’ermastering rhyme! 
I covered either little foot,
  I drew the strings about its waist;
Pink as the unshell’d inner fruit,
  But barely decent, hardly chaste,
Its nudity had startled me;
  But when the petticoats were on,
“I know,” I said; “its name shall be
  Paul Cyril Athanasius John.” 
“Why,” said my wife, “the child’s a girl.” 
  My brain swooned, sick with failing sense;
With all perception in a whirl,
  How could I tell the difference? 
“Nay,” smiled the nurse, “the child’s a boy.” 
  And all my soul was soothed to hear
That so it was:  then startled Joy
  Mocked Sorrow with a doubtful tear. 
And I was glad as one who sees
  For sensual optics things unmeet: 
As purity makes passion freeze,
  So faith warns science off her beat. 
Blessed are they that have not seen,
  And yet, not seeing, have believed: 
To walk by faith, as preached the Dean,
  And not by sight, have I achieved. 
Let love, that does not look, believe;
  Let knowledge, that believes not, look: 
Truth pins her trust on falsehood’s sleeve,
  While reason blunders by the book. 
Then Mrs. Prig addressed me thus;
  “Sir, if you’ll be advised by me,
You’ll leave the blessed babe to us;
  It’s my belief he wants his tea.”

* * * * *

LAST WORDS OF A SEVENTH-RATE POET

Bill, I feel far from quite right—­if not further:  already the pill
Seems, if I may say so, to bubble inside me.  A poet’s heart, Bill,
Is a sort of a thing that is made of the tenderest young bloom on a fruit. 
You may pass me the mixture at once, if you please—­and I’ll thank you
    to boot
For that poem—­and then for the julep.  This really is damnable stuff! 
(Not the poem, of course.) Do you snivel, old friend? well, it’s nasty
    enough,
But I think I can stand it—­I think so—­ay, Bill, and I could were it
    worse. 
But I’ll tell you a thing that I can’t and I won’t.  ’Tis the old, old
    curse—­
The gall of the gold-fruited Eden, the lure of the angels that fell. 
’Tis the core of the fruit snake-spotted in the hush of the shadows of
    hell,
Where a lost man sits with his head drawn down, and a weight on his eyes.