WHILE seeking in a Warwick lane The nest a greenfinch hoped to save, I met a Gipsy group that bore An infant to the grave. In front of all the father strode, The narrow case beneath his arm: Fast down his sun-tann'd cheeks there rolled The teardrops salt and warm. His neck a scarlet kerchief bound, His chieftain's head was duly bare: His heart was in the box of deal With baby lips and hair. The mother went with tearless eyes, One hand upon the coffin laid; The other clutched the breast that yearned To feed the little maid. A yellowhammer flew along In golden jaunts, securely fleet: None watched the living topaz fly Adown the leafy street. I wished those times could come again When man, possessing more of worth, Had God for closer neighbour here, And prophets on the earth. Elijah would have stretched himself In faith upon the Gipsy child, And then have watched the parents smile As once the Widow smiled. Not now shall Death be forced to bear A second lighting of the lamp He snuffs beside an emperor's bed, Or in a Gipsies' camp. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE TEN COMMANDMENTS by GEORGE SANTAYANA TWO SONGS OF A FOOL: 1 by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS BABY RUNNING BAREFOOT by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1882 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI POLITICAL GREATNESS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY SONNET TO NIGHT by JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |