by Coleridge · Cluster: Death · Silence · Bells
Abstract
An epigrammatic epitaph consoling that an unbaptized infant, dying at the mother’s breast, is a ‘Possessor, not Inheritor’ of the kingdom of the Blest.
Connections
Archetypes: Innocent Motifs: Death Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Grace and Redemption, Faith Forms & Genres: Epigram, Elegy Characters: Death Personified
Testo integrale / Full text
‘Be, rather than be called, a child of God,’
Death whispered! With assenting nod,
Its head upon its mother’s breast,
The Baby bowed, without demur —
Of the kingdom of the Blest
Possessor, not Inheritor.
April 8, 1799.