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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MIMMA BELLA; IN MEMORY OF A LITTLE LIFE: 19, by EUGENE JACOB LEE-HAMILTON Poet's Biography
First Line: What alchemy is thine, o little child
Last Line: Shrines in its sanctuaries while ages flow.
Subject(s): Death - Children; Death - Babies
First Line: What alchemy is thine, o little child
Last Line: Shrines in its sanctuaries while ages flow.
Subject(s): Death - Children; Death - Babies
What alchemy is thine, O little Child,
Transmuting all our thoughts, thou that art dead,
And making gold of all the dross of lead
That leaves the soul's pure crucible defiled;
A vaporous gold, which I would fain have piled
Upon my palette, and with light brush spread
On Death's dark background, that thy baby head
Might wear a nimbus where the angels smiled?
Thus had I given back what thou hast wrought
In my own soul, and placed thee high among
The cherubs that are aureoled in glow;
Rimming thy brow with fine red gold of thought,
In such fair pictures as the English tongue
Shrines in its sanctuaries while ages flow.
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