Explore "The Dead Child's Playthings" by Théophile Gautier on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Marie comes no more at call. / She has wandered from her play. / Ah, how pitifully small / Was the coffin borne away!
See -- about the nursery floor / All her little heritage: / Rubber ball and battledore, / Tattered book and coloured page.
Poor forsaken doll! in vain / Stretch your arms. She will not come. / Stopped forever is the train, / And the music-box is dumb.
Some one touched it soft, apart, / Where the silence is her name. / And what sinking of the heart / At the plaintive note that came!
Ah, the anguish! when the tomb / Robs the cradle; when bereft / We discover in the gloom / Child toys that an angel left.