Only a Curl.

Only a Curl.

I.

FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land

Unvisited over the sea,

Who tell me how lonely you stand

With a single gold curl in the hand

Held up to be looked at by me, --

II.

While you ask me to ponder and say

What a father and mother can do,

With the bright fellow-locks put away

Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay

Where the violets press nearer than you.

III.

Shall I speak like a poet, or run

Into weak womans tears for relief ?

Oh, children ! -- I never lost one, --

Yet my arm s round my own little son,

And Love knows the secret of Grief.

IV.

And I feel what it must be and is,

When God draws a new angel so

Through the house of a man up to His,

With a murmur of music, you miss,

And a rapture of light, you forgo.

V.

How you think, staring on at the door,

Where the face of your angel flashed in,

That its brightness, familiar before,

Burns off from you ever the more

For the dark of your sorrow and sin.

VI.

`God lent him and takes him, you sigh ;

-- Nay, there let me break with your pain :

God s generous in giving, say I, --

And the thing which He gives, I deny

That He ever can take back again.

VII.

He gives what He gives. I appeal

To all who bear babes -- in the hour

When the veil of the body we feel

Rent round us, -- while torments reveal

The motherhoods advent in power,

VIII.

And the babe cries ! -- has each of us known

By apocalypse (God being there

Full in nature) the child is our own,

Life of life, love of love, moan of moan,

Through all changes, all times, everywhere.

IX.

He s ours and for ever. Believe,

O father ! -- O mother, look back

To the first loves assurance. To give

Means with God not to tempt or deceive

With a cup thrust in Benjamins sack.

X.

He gives what He gives. Be content !

He resumes nothing given, -- be sure !

God lend ? Where the usurers lent

In His temple, indignant He went

And scourged away all those impure.

XI.

He lends not ; but gives to the end,

As He loves to the end. If it seem

That He draws back a gift, comprehend

Tis to add to it rather, -- amend,

And finish it up to your dream, --

XII.

Or keep, -- as a mother will toys

Too costly, though given by herself,

Till the room shall be stiller from noise,

And the children more fit for such joys,

Kept over their heads on the shelf.

XIII.

So look up, friends ! you, who indeed

Have possessed in your house a sweet piece

Of the Heaven which men strive for, must need

Be more earnest than others are,--speed

Where they loiter, persist where they cease.

XIV.

You know how one angel smiles there.

Then weep not. Tis easy for you

To be drawn by a single gold hair

Of that curl, from earths storm and despair,

To the safe place above us. Adieu.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning