Poem: “When baby Souls Sail Out” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Poems of Sentiment

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American Literature – American Poetry – Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems of Sentiment
< < < Memorial Day—1892
To Another Woman’s Baby > > >

When baby Souls Sail Out

When from our mortal vision
   Grown men and women go
To sail strange fields Elysian
   And know what spirits know,
I think of them as tourists,
   In some sun-gilded clime,
’Mong happy sights and dear delights
   We all shall find, in time.

But when a child goes yonder
   And leaves its mother here,
Its little feet must wander,
   It seems to me, in fear.
What paths of Eden beauty,
   What scenes of peace and rest,
Can bring content to one who went
   Forth from a mother’s breast?

In palace gardens, lonely,
   A little child will roam
And weep for pleasures only
   Found in its humble home.
It is not won by splendour,
   Nor bought by costly toys;
To hide from harm on mother’s arm
   Makes all its sum of joys.

It must be when the baby
   Goes journeying off alone,
Some angel (Mary, may be)
   Adopts it for her own.
Yet when a child is taken
   Whose mother stays below,
With weeping eyes, through Paradise,
   I seem to see it go.

With troops of angels trying
   To drive away its fear,
I seem to hear it crying,
   “I want my mamma here.”
I do not court the fancy,
   It is not based on doubt,
It is a thought that comes unsought
   When baby souls sail out.

< < < Memorial Day—1892
To Another Woman’s Baby > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems of Sentiment

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Poems of Sentiment

When baby Souls Sail Out

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