I take the letter up with anxious eyes,
And open it with beating heart, and there,
Within the folded sheet before me lies
A soft and silky lock of baby's hair.
I know at once that it is baby's hair,
For, glancing down the letter, I can see
'Dear friend—my wife—a child,' and here and there
Dashes of most paternal pride and glee.
Then, light, as when we touch some sacred thing,
I lift it up, and in my hard, rough hand
It lies like down from off some fairy's wing
Wafted to this dull earth from Fairyland.
Half smiling still, I think how far away
The dear one will be safe within those arms,
That will protect it from the dull, rough day
That looms as yet afar off with its harms:
Safe in a mother's first sweet clasp, while here
Fresh from my toil I stand, and in my eye
A moisture slowly gathering to a tear,
As still I gaze with half a wish to sigh.
For strange it is, I think, that here to-night
This lock should rise up from the sheet to be
A link between a baby, frail and slight,
And a great, rugged, bearded thing like me.
Half-puzzled still, I place the lock away,
And read the letter, teeming with its gush
Of long-hid thoughts that now burst into day,
And into all their new-found channels rush.
'Dearer than shining gold, because less rife,'
Thus writes my friend, 'is this one lock we send,
And dearer far than aught on earth, the life
That God hath sent us to keep to the end.
'The dear thing came as all His blessings do,
In the lone night, as if He wish'd to teach
That when no light could greet our human view,
The heart would know the season to beseech.
'So with this gift to open up our hearts,
Life fills with purer aims, for this sweet link
Reaches out to the future, and imparts
A colour unto all we speak and think.
'Truly it hath been said by one great mind
That God is near us when a child is born,
Giving us thoughts that grow, until we find
Wide space for love, and none for hate and scorn.
'I feel this even now,' thus ends my friend,
'For looking on the dear, sweet face, I know
That love must move us onward to the end,
Flowering when the frail dust is laid below.'
Thanks, then, dear friend, for this, and with them take
My earnest wishes that this life may be
Dealt out to thy sweet one, even for thy sake,
Soft as its little silky lock with me.