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MIMMA BELLA; IN MEMORY OF A LITTLE LIFE: 17 by EUGENE JACOB LEE-HAMILTON

First Line: DO YOU RECALL THE SCENTS, THE INSECT WHIRR
Last Line: WHICH NOW, GOD KNOWS, IS HIDDEN BUT TOO WELL.
Subject(s): DEATH - CHILDREN; DEATH - BABIES;

Do you recall the scents, the insect whirr,
Where we had laid her in the chestnut shade?
How discs of sunlight through the bright leaves played
Upon the grass, as we bent over her?

How roving breezes made the bracken stir
Beside her, while the bumble-bee, arrayed
In brown and gold, hummed round her, and the glade
Was strewn with last year's chestnuts' prickly fur?

There in the forest's ripe and fragrant heat
She lay and laughed, and kicked her wee bare feet,
And stretched wee hands to grasp some woodland bell;

And played her little games; and when we said
"Cuckoo," would lift her frock, and hide her head,
Which now, God knows, is hidden but too well.



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