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For Wilma (Aged Five Years)

by R. C. Lehmann

Like winds that with the setting of the sun

Draw to a quiet murmuring and cease,

So is her little struggle fought and done;

And the brief fever and the pain

In a last sigh fade out and so release

The lately-breathing dust they may not hurt again.

Now all that Wilma was is made as naught:

Stilled is the laughter that was erst our pleasure;

The pretty air, the childish grace untaught,

The innocent wiles,

And all the sunny smiles,

The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure;

The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high,

The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye;

Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined,

And the gay impulse of her baby mind

That none could tame,

That sent her spinning round,

A spirit of living flame

Dancing in airy rapture o'er the ground -

All these with that faint sigh are made to be

Man's breath upon a glass, a mortal memory.

Then from the silent room where late she played,

Setting a steady course toward the light,

Swifter than thistledown the little shade,

Reft from the nooks that she had made her own

And from the love that sheltered, fared alone

Forth through the gloomy spaces of the night,

Until at last she lit before the gate

Where all the suppliant shades must stand and wait.

Grim Cerberus, the foiler of the dead,

Keeping his everlasting vigil there

In deep-mouthed wrath

Athwart the rocky path,

Did at her coming raise his triple head

And lift his bristling hair;

But when he saw our tender little maid

Forlorn, but unafraid,

He blinked his flaming eyes and ceased to frown,

And, fawning on her, smoothed his shaggy crest,

Composed his savage limbs and settled down

With ears laid back and all his care at rest;

And so with kindly aspect beckoned in

The little playmate of his earthly kin.

For often she had tugged old Rollo's mane,

And often Lufra felt the loving check

Of childish arms about her glossy neck -

Lufra and Rollo, who with anxious faces

Now cast about the haunts and hiding-places

To find their friend, but ever cast in vain.

So now, set free from all that can oppress,

And in her own white innocence arrayed,

Made one for ever with all happiness,

Alert she wanders through the starry glade;

Or, where the blissful Shades intone their praise,

She from the lily-covered bowers

Heaping her arms with flowers

Soars and is borne along

The amaranthine the delightful ways,

Gushes the pretty notes and careless trills

Of her unstudied song,

And with her music all the joyous valley fills.

Yet, oh ye Powers whose rule is set above

These fair abodes that ring the firmament,

Spirits of Peace and Happiness and Love,

And thou, too, mild-eyed Spirit of Content,

Ye will not chide if sometimes in her play

The child should start and droop her shining head,

Turning in meek surmise

Her wistful eyes

Back tow'rd the dimness of our mortal day

And the loved home from which her soul was sped.

Soon shall our little Wilma learn to be

Amid the immortal blest

An unrepining guest,

Who now, dear heart, is young for your eternity.