By Albert Bigelow Paine (1861 - 1937)

In Louisiana

THE LONG, gray moss that softly swings     In solemn grandeur from the trees,     Like mournful funeral draperies,— A brown-winged bird that never sings.   A shallow, stagnant, inland sea,     Where rank swamp grasses wave, and where     A deadliness lurks in the air,— A sere leaf falling silently.   The death-like calm on every hand,     That one might deem it sin to break,     So pure, so perfect,—these things make The mournful beauty of this land.

The Little Child

A SIMPLE-HEARTED child was He,   And He was nothing more; In summer days, like you and me,   He played about the door, Or gathered, where the father toiled.   The shavings from the floor.   Sometimes He lay upon the grass,   The same as you and I, And saw the hawks above Him pass   Like specks against the sky; Or, clinging to the gate, He watched   The stranger passing by.   A simple child, and yet, I think,   The bird-folk must have known, The sparrow and the bobolink,   And claimed Him for their own,— They gathered round Him fearlessly   When He was all alone.   The lark, the linnet, and the dove,   The chaffinch and the wren, They must have known His watchful love   And given their worship then; They must have known and glorified   The child who died for men.   And when the sun at break of day   Crept in upon His hair, I think it must have left a ray   Of unseen glory there, A kiss of love on that little brow   For the thorns that it must wear.

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