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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONNET: 2, 10 by FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN

First Line: THY BABY TOO, THE CHILD THAT WAS TO BE
Last Line: TO BREAK THE AXE'S EDGE OF TIME AND FATE.

Thy baby too, the child that was to be
Through happier days--a brightening sun above--
Held to thy heart with more forgetful love,
So proud a portion of thyself and me:
We talked it o'er,--the bliss that was to bless;
The birth, the baby robes, the christening,
And all our hearts were carried in this thing.
Cold, cold she lies where houseless tempests blow.
The baby's face is here, almost a woe;
And I, so seared in soul, so sapped and shrunk,
Gaze hopeless,--careless, in my changed estate
To fall at once, or in the wilderness
Stand like a charred and fire-hardened trunk,
To break the axe's edge of time and fate.



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