Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,
   Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,
   A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,
It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
   Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever
   Into the emptiness and silence, into the night. . . . )

They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,
   Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin---and therein
   God's little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,
And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal---
Till it was no more visible; then turned again
With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.

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Page last updated: 15 August 1998 ©1998-1999, Richard J. Yanco