Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BABYHOOD, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BABYHOOD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: A baby shines as bright
Last Line: Rose
Subject(s): Babies; Flowers; Roundels; Infants


I.

A BABY shines as bright
If winter or if May be
On eyes that keep in sight
A baby.

Though dark the skies or gray be,
It fills our eyes with light,
If midnight or midday be.

Love hails it, day and night,
The sweetest thing that may be,
Yet cannot praise aright
A baby.

II.

All heaven, in every baby born,
All absolute of earthly leaven,
Reveals itself, tho' man may scorn
All heaven.

Yet man might feel all sin forgiven,
All grief appeased, all pain outworn,
By this one revelation given.

Soul, now forgot thy burdens borne:
Heart, be thy joys now seven times seven:
Love shows in light more bright than morn
All heaven.

III.

What likeness may define, and stay not
From truth's exactest way,
A baby's beauty? Love can say not
What likeness may.

The Mayflower loveliest held in May
Of all that shine and stay not
Laughs not in rosier disarray.

Sleek satin, swansdown, buds that play not
As yet with winds that play,
Would fain be matched with this, and may not:
What likeness may?

IV.

ROSE, round whose bed
Dawn's cloudlets close
Earth's brightest-bred
Rose!

No song, love knows,
May praise the head
Your curtain shows.

Ere sleep has fled,
The whole child glows
One sweet live red
Rose





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