Holy Innocents by Sheila Kaye-Smith
"Holy Innocents" is a poem by Sheila Kaye-Smith in which the speaker marks a feast day associated with red and white -- the red of shed blood and the white of the innocence of small souls who met their end before they could know the horrors of fighting. The speaker envisions these souls running joyfully in gardens, snatching at the colours of the rainbow's flame, throwing stars about in childish games, and pulling the clouds apart for play. The speaker then clarifies that these are not the children slaughtered by the king, the babes for whom dark Rachael bows her head and wails so loudly. The Innocents being honored here are other, holier ones: children who never worked love's greatest wonder in a mother's eyes, who never brought a tender, warm surprise with groping lips to breasts that had, until then, gone unsought. They are described as the fruit of hundredfold desires, born of ten thousand dreams, filling the cities of a promised land that was long promised but never given, lost instead in fires. These are named as the children the speaker had hoped to show the secret of life and of love, but instead they are now playing with the speaker's dreams above, while the speaker continues on through dead hopes below. The speaker addresses them as saints who may have been saved from much that the speaker must still endure, worshipping them and asking for their prayers -- naming them as the little children that shall never be, the little children the speaker shall never have.
By Sheila Kaye-Smith · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry, Elegy · 324 words
First lines
To-day I keep a feast, with red and white -- / The red blood and the snow-white innocence / Of little souls who had their recompense / Before they learned the horrors of the fight.
I see them running in their gardens gay, / They snatch the colours of the rainbow's flame, / And throw the stars about in childish game, / And pull the clouds to pieces for their play.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work employs formal verse structure with rhyming stanzas and lyrical conventions to express profound personal emotion and introspective meditation.
- Religious Poetry — Incorporates substantial biblical and Christian imagery (Holy Innocents, Rachel's lamentation, saints, prayer) combined with spiritual questioning and divine invocation.
- Elegy — Fundamentally structured as a lamentation and mourning for loss, specifically the grief of imagined unconceived children and unfulfilled maternal dreams.
- Feminist Literature — Examines constraints and sacrifices imposed on women's identity regarding motherhood, highlighting the profound grief of denied feminine experience.
Tags
unborn children · childlessness · maternal loss · grief · innocence · unfulfilled desire · celestial imagery · war · Biblical allusions · elegy · melancholy · personal loss
What this Textopian page supports
Holy Innocents is listed on Textopian as a poem by Sheila Kaye-Smith, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Sheila Kaye-Smith
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Religious Poetry, Elegy, Feminist Literature, Metaphysical Poetry
- Length: 324 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Holy Innocents by Sheila Kaye-Smith
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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