Sonnet [The Baby Sings Not On Its Mother’s Breast]
by
The baby sings not on its mother’s breast;
Nor nightingales who nestle side by side;
Nor I by thine: but let us only part,
Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still,
As having uttered all, must speak again–
O stunted thoughts! O chill and fettered rhyme
Yet my great bliss, though still entirely blest,
Losing its proper home, can find no rest:
So, like a child who whiles away the time
With dance and carol till the eventide,
Watching its mother homeward through the glen;
Or nightingale, who, sitting far apart,
Tells to his listening mate within the nest
The wonder of his star-entranced heart
Till all the wakened woodlands laugh and thrill–
Forth all my being bubbles into song;
And rings aloft, not smooth, yet clear and strong.
Bertrich, 1851