Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


A LITTLE PERSON by WILLIAM BRIAN HOOKER

First Line: SUNNY HAIR AND EYES OF WONDER
Last Line: LAUGHED -- AND THAT WAS YOU!

Sunny hair and eyes of wonder,
Baby-lips apart,
Vivid mother-breast, whereunder
Laughs a childish heart --
What have you to do with learning
Wiser bliss or woe?
Take our gold; the cost of earning
You shall never know.

You shall joy as for another,
Find it strange to weep,
Play at being wife and mother,
Dream, and fall asleep;
All we toil for, all we doubt of,
All we yearn to see,
All our hopes have sneered us out of --
You shall prove, and be.

You shall purify deceiving
With a glad disdain,
Beautifully unbelieving
Meet the eyes of pain,
Dance through hells undreamed-of, bringing
Benefits unguessed:
Unto shame, a sound of singing,
Unto passion, rest.

Sunny hair and eyes of wonder,
Baby-lips apart,
Vivid mother-breast, whereunder
Laughs a childish heart,
Soul unsinful, unforgiven,
Voice of dawn and dew --
God one morning, glad of heaven,
Laughed -- and that was you!



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