Classic Poem

A newcomer's there since this morning
in that lone house up on the hill.
Alert, the dog stands in the door,
he scents a tiny voice in the air.
And yet the whole night long was cloudless,
and not the least creak of the house-door was heard.

They did not (what think you, pray?) take him
from out a hollow chestnut tree.
You surely would have heard his whimpering
amid the silence of the night.
And out in the slumbering meadows
was naught but the note of the cricket: tre. . . . tre. . . .

They didn't bring him home from the convent,
they did not buy him at the fair.
Last night on all the roads no steps,
save now and then the tramping wind.
And, circling about the small houses,
the voice of the owl could be heard there, alone.

The houses were silent, illumined
the ways; the dog slept at the door.
It must be that the stranger came,
as comes a chicken to his shell!
The glittering stars in the heavens
were falling. . . . Oh, thou, too, from heaven didst fall!

From heaven, from heaven, that raineth
the dew upon the hardened sod.
Thou camest down, nor knowest where!
with watery eye dost glance about.
The fall was no trivial passage,
but here was a downy, soft cradle for thee.

The world where to-day thou dost waken
seems far less fair to thee than heaven!
Thy face is twisting, and thy mouth
is wry, for bitter is the taste!
Ah, heaven! thine own heaven! Thou askest
of all with thy querulous calling: oh, where?

Thou askest the children, who gathered
at break of day with footstep light;
the swallows too, that circled round
like dusky lightning flashes fleet;
nor dost comprehend, mid the whisperings confused, where has vanished thy heaven of blue.

Hush! Hush! Now he questions no longer:
his mother's voice has answered him.
To her they took him from the cradle,
she holds him close against her breast.
Behold now his infinite heaven!
No longer that wee, infant wailing: oh, where?