Reading Time: < 1 minute

Poem

The baby new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prest
Against the circle of the breast,
Has never thought that “this is I”:
But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of “I,” and “me,”
And finds “I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch.”
So rounds he to a separate mind
From whence clear memory may begin,
As thro’ the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined.

This use may lie in blood and breath
Which else were fruitless of their due,
Had man to learn himself anew
Beyond the second birth of Death.

Previous Poem
In Memoriam A. H. H.: 39. Old Warder Of These Buried Bones
Next Poem
In Memoriam A. H. H.: 54. Oh, Yet We Trust That Somehow Goo