First Affections

William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood:

         [...] High instincts before which our mortal Nature
                Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
                      But for those first affections,
                      Those shadowy recollections,
                Which, be they what they may
                Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
                Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
                    Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
                Our noisy years seem moments in the being
                Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
                    To perish never;
                Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
                      Nor Man nor Boy,
                Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
                Can utterly abolish or destroy! [...]
                    Though nothing can bring back the hour
                Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
                      We will grieve not, rather find
                      Strength in what remains behind;
                      In the primal sympathy
                      Which having been must ever be;
                      In the soothing thoughts that spring
                      Out of human suffering;
                      In the faith that looks through death, [...]
                Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
                Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
                To me the meanest flower that blows can give
                Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

So Stainless And So Calm

George W. Bethune (1805-1862), Hymn to Night:

                    YES! bear them to their rest;
                The rosy babe, tired with the glare of day,
                The prattler, fallen asleep e’en in his play;
                    Clasp them to thy soft breast,
                                        O night!
                Bless them in dreams with a deep, hushed delight.

                    Yet must they wake again,
                Wake soon to all the bitterness of life,
                The pang of sorrow, the temptation strife,
                    Aye to the conscience pain:
                                        O night!
                Canst thou not take with them a longer flight?

                    Canst thou not bear them far
                E’en now, all innocent, before they know
                The taint of sin, its consequence of woe,
                    The world’s distracting jar,
                                        O night!
                To some ethereal, holier, happier height?

                    Canst thou not bear them up
                Through starlit skies, far from this planet dim
                And sorrowful, e’en while they sleep, to Him
                    Who drank for us the cup,
                                        O night!
                The cup of wrath, for hearts in faith contrite?

                    To Him, for them who slept
                A babe all holy on his mother’s knee,
                And from that hour to cross-crowned Calvary,
                    In all our sorrow wept,
                                        O night!
                That on our souls might dawn Heaven’s cheering light.

                    Go, lay their little heads
                Close to that human heart, with love divine
                Deep-breathing, while his arms immortal twine
                    Around them, as he sheds,
                                        O night!
                On them a brother’s grace of God’s own boundless might.

                    Let them immortal wake
                Among the deathless flowers of Paradise,
                Where angel songs of welcome with surprise
                    This their last sleep may break,
                                        O night!
                And to celestial joy their kindred souls invite.

                    There can come no sorrow;
                The brow shall know no shade, the eye no tears,
                Forever young, through heaven’s eternal years
                    In one unfading morrow,
                                        O night!
                Nor sin nor age nor pain their cherub beauty blight.

                    Would we could sleep as they,
                So stainless and so calm,—at rest with Thee,—
                And only wake in immortality!
                    Bear us with them away,
                                        O night!
                To that ethereal, holier, happier height.