The Dead Child's Playthings

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Title:     The Dead Child's Playthings
Author: Theophile Gautier [More Titles by Gautier]

Marie comes no more at call.
She has wandered from her play.
Ah, how pitifully small
Was the coffin borne away!

See--about the nursery floor
All her little heritage:
Rubber ball and battledore,
Tattered book and coloured page.

Poor forsaken doll! in vain
Stretch your arms. She will not come.
Stopped forever is the train,
And the music-box is dumb.

Some one touched it soft, apart,
Where the silence is her name.
And what sinking of the heart
At the plaintive note that came!

Ah, the anguish! when the tomb
Robs the cradle; when bereft
We discover in the gloom
Child toys that an angel left.

[The end]
Theophile Gautier's poem: Dead Child's Playthings

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