MEDIÆVAL, a poem

SHE said: "My babe is dead:
     Unchristened did he die.
I wake in the long, lone night
     And hear his plaintive cry.

"I wonder does God hear,
     And will not let him in—
My little one who died
     All innocent of sin?

"The wicked, who repent,
     Win heaven, so men say;
And was my bonny child
     Less dear to Him than they?

"There's not a soul in bliss,
     Rejoicing in God's Son,
That's purer or more sweet
     Than was my little one!

"Lowly, at Mary's shrine
     Before the dawn of day
I kneel, for him to plead
     Who was too small to pray

"Ah, mother blessed! bring
     My babe to know the light!
Or, pitying, win for me
     With him to roam the night!"

"Mediæval" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1916) Volume II and as "Medieval" in The Bellman (13 September 1913).