When You Wake In Your Crib

I. M. - Margaret Emma Henley (1888-1894)     When you wake in your crib,     You, an inch of experience -     Vaulted about     With the wonder of darkness;     Wailing and striving     To reach from your feebleness     Something you feel     Will be good to and cherish you,     Something you know     And can rest upon blindly:     O, then a hand     (Your mother's, your mother's!)     By the fall of its fingers     All knowledge, all power to you,     Out of the dreary,     Discouraging strangenesses     Comes to and masters you,     Takes you, and lovingly     Woos you and soothes you     Back, as you cling to it,     Back to some comforting     Corner of sleep.     So you wake in your bed,     Having lived, having loved;     But the shadows are there,     And the world and its kingdoms     Incredibly faded;     And you group through the Terror     Above you and under     For the light, for the warmth,     The assurance of life;     But the blasts are ice-born,     And your heart is nigh burst     With the weight of the gloom     And the stress of your strangled     And desperate endeavour:     Sudden a hand -     Mother, O Mother! -     God at His best to you,     Out of the roaring,     Impossible silences,     Falls on and urges you,     Mightily, tenderly,     Forth, as you clutch at it,     Forth to the infinite     Peace of the Grave.     October 1891