Your Mother Died Last Night Poem by Robert Kirkland Kernighan

O, baby mine !

Your lips unsheath,
And show your tongue

And pearly teeth ;

Do n't throb and cry, do n't start in fright ;
Do n't weep,
But sleep
Your mother, baby, died last night.

Come in and see
Her lying dead,

Upon her snowy bed :
How sweet she is, how calm and white

Do n't weep,

But sleep,
Your mother, baby, died last night.

She does not speak,
Or even smile ;

But in the splendid after-while
You '11 see her stand in radiant light ;

Beneath her feet

The golden street,
And round her neither death nor night.

My orphaned young,

O, baby mine !
My loss is nought

At all, to thine :

For when her spirit took its flight,

Your greatest stay

Was ta'en away
And soared aloft to God last night.