The Poet's Love for the Children

Kindly and warm and tender, / He nestled each childish palm / So close in his own that his touch was a prayer / And his speech a blessed psalm.

He has turned from the marvelous pages / Of many an alien tome -- / Haply come down from Olivet, / Or out from the gates of Rome --

Set sail o'er the seas between him / And each little beckoning hand / That fluttered about in the meadows / And groves of his native land, --

Fluttered and flashed on his vision / As, in the glimmering light / Of the orchard-lands of childhood, / The blossoms of pink and white.

And there have been sobs in his bosom, / As out on the shores he stept, / And many a little welcomer / Has wondered why he wept. --

That was because, O children, / Ye might not always be / The same that the Savior's arms were wound / About, in Galilee.