[from Collected Works, T.E.Brown]

JESSIE

WHEN Jessie comes with her soft breast,
And yields the golden keys,
Then is it as if God caressed
Twin babes upon His knees—
Twin babes that, each to other pressed,
just feel the Father's arms, wherewith they both are blessed.

But when I think if we must part,
And all this personal dream be fled—
O, then my heart !
O, then my useless heart! Would God that thou Overt dead—
A clod insensible to joys or ills—
A stone remote in some bleak gully of the hills !