Down blossoming ways, upon the happy star
Where all young things of all Creation are--
Small winds and rainbows and the thoughts of flowers,
The unborn children laughed away the hours. And like an aureole about each head
Hovered the shining prayers a mother said;
And like a radiant garment, pearl-enwrought,
About each form was wrapt a mother's thought. Lovely and loved, the unborn children played,
With tenderness enfolded and arrayed--
Sported with stars upon the flowery sod,
And prattled, clinging round the knees of God. But as they played one, listening, turned his face
Earthward, and saddened for a little space:
"Father, I hear their wistful voices cry;
Lonely and lost, I hear their feet go by-- "Their little homeless feet that find no rest:
For them no haven of a mother's breast.
Their sad eyes plead, their fluttering hands implore
In vain, for ever and for evermore. "Somewhere for us a mother dreams and waits,
But they are shut for aye outside the gates--
The gates of Birth; for us a mother prays,
But they go desolate through all the days. "Father, look down! Upon a suffering star
Their fathers have been slain, been slain in War..
I hear them wail, bereavè d and forlorn--
The little children who can ne'er be born."