Classic Poem

I thought I'd bear a pithy boy,
To make my man more proud of me
Or else, at least a sonsy lass,
To help me in my housewifery.
But oh! they laid upon my breast
A little star with flamy hair,
A little comet of a babe,
All fiery tressed and silver fair,
A thing so elfin bright and wanton,
As neither life nor death will daunton.

That night in dreams I heard a voice,
(No voice of day was ever clearer),
Full sweet and shrill it sang to me:
" Woman! You'll call her name Innira! "
My neighbors all, they thought me daft,
My man was tolerant but merry,
" Innira next to Shaw? " laughed he,
" A diamond strung beside a cherry! "
But still he let me have my way,
And she's " Innira " to this day.

Come closer, 'tis too hard to bear
A grievous secret all alone, —
Though twenty mothers could not love
Their twenty bairns as I this one,
Terribly sure I am of this, —
She is a thing of fairie.
And oh! my heart is filled with fire,
To think how she may flit from me,
Some evening all so silently
As flits a blossom from a tree.

For though she is an only child
And other bairnies dwell not near,
Playmates she hath for her delight,
Playmates I cannot see or hear:
And she will kiss the empty air,
Or gather it in loving arms,
Murmuring lowly or with laughter,
Lovely names like elfin charms, —
Illida, Ellora, Zelis,
Marivore and Chrysadelis.

Yet there is worse that I must tell.
— Would you have thought a lovely thing
A thing of horror e'er could be?
Well may you stare with marvelling!
'Twas yestereve, — we walked alone,
My little starry lass and I;
She plucked a white rose from the hedge,
Then turning with a joyous cry:
" It is for you, Ellora, dear! "
Held it as though to some one near.

Oh, even now my heart is ice,
To see within the glass of thought
That sight so eerisome again! —
— She loosed the rose, its stem was caught
By something in the vacant air,
And just a child's height from the ground
That flower did float as though upheld
By little fingers clasped around, —
Did keep beside us for a space,
Then like a white moth fled apace!

And now you know why all my joy
Is dwyning in me hour by hour,
And why my love is all unease;
Prayer without faith has little power.
Alas! and I have little faith,
For what availeth it to pray,
When sure I am in flesh and soul,
That she from me will fade away,
Suddenly, all so fair and fey,
As fades the morning from the day?