Only A Curl

I.     Friends of faces unknown and a land     Unvisited over the sea,     Who tell me how lonely you stand     With a single gold curl in the hand     Held up to be looked at by me, II.     While you ask me to ponder and say     What a father and mother can do,     With the bright fellow-locks put away     Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay     Where the violets press nearer than you. III.     Shall I speak like a poet, or run     Into weak woman's tears for relief?     Oh, children! I never lost one,     Yet my arm 's round my own little son,     And Love knows the secret of Grief. IV.     And I feel what it must be and is,     When God draws a new angel so     Through the house of a man up to His,     With a murmur of music, you miss,     And a rapture of light, you forgo. V.     How you think, staring on at the door,     Where the face of your angel flashed in,     That its brightness, familiar before,     Burns off from you ever the more     For the dark of your sorrow and sin. VI.     God lent him and takes him,' you sigh;     Nay, there let me break with your pain:     God's generous in giving, say I,     And the thing which He gives, I deny     That He ever can take back again. VII.     He gives what He gives. I appeal     To all who bear babes in the hour     When the veil of the body we feel     Rent round us, while torments reveal     The motherhood's advent in power, VIII.     And the babe cries! has each of us known     By apocalypse (God being there     Full in nature) the child is our own,     Life of life, love of love, moan of moan,     Through all changes, all times, everywhere. IX.     He's ours and for ever. Believe,     O father! O mother, look back     To the first love's assurance. To give     Means with God not to tempt or deceive     With a cup thrust in Benjamin's sack. X.     He gives what He gives. Be content!     He resumes nothing given, be sure!     God lend? Where the usurers lent     In His temple, indignant He went     And scourged away all those impure. XI.     He lends not; but gives to the end,     As He loves to the end. If it seem     That He draws back a gift, comprehend     'Tis to add to it rather, amend,     And finish it up to your dream, XII.     Or keep, as a mother will toys     Too costly, though given by herself,     Till the room shall be stiller from noise,     And the children more fit for such joys,     Kept over their heads on the shelf. XIII.     So look up, friends! you, who indeed     Have possessed in your house a sweet piece     Of the Heaven which men strive for, must need     Be more earnest than others are,speed     Where they loiter, persist where they cease. XIV.     You know how one angel smiles there.     Then weep not. 'Tis easy for you     To be drawn by a single gold hair     Of that curl, from earth's storm and despair,     To the safe place above us. Adieu.