Victorian Poetry/The History of Life

I SAW an infant in its mother’s arms,
And left if sleeping:
Years passed – I saw a girl with woman’s charms,
In sorrow weeping.

Years passed – I saw a mother with her child,
And o’er it languish:
Years brought me back – yet through her tears she smiled,
In deeper anguish.

I left her – years had vanished – I returned,
And stood before her;
A lamp beside the childless widow burned –
Grief’s mantle o’er her.

In tears I found her whom I left in tears,
On God replying:
And I returned again in after years,
And found her dying.

An infant first and then a maiden fair –
A wife – a mother –
And then a childless widow in despair –
Thus bet a brother.

And thus we meet on earth and thus we part
To meet, O, never!
Till death beholds the spirit leave the heart,
To live for ever!

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