ON A DEAD CHILD by Richard Barham Middleton

Man proposes, God in His time disposes,

And so I wander'd up to where you lay,

A little rose among the little roses,

And no more dead than they.

It seemed your childish feet were tired of straying,

You did not greet me from your flower-strewn bed,

Yet still I knew that you were only playing --

Playing at being dead.

I might have thought that you were really sleeping,

So quiet lay your eyelids to the sky,

So still your hair, but surely you were peeping;

And so I did not cry.

God knows, and in His proper time disposes,

And so I smiled and gently called your name,

Added my rose to your sweet heap of roses,

And left you to your game.