When Children Die Poem by John May

When children die what grief is more
What sorrow measurable compares
So deep the pain that cuts us through
It changes everything we view
The golden sun has oft grown pale
And weary since their slumber came
The roses, hueless, bring no glee
When all we want is them to see

To pass so young to heaven's door
From ‘neath the vaulted blue so wide
A thought that we can hardly take
The sense of which we cannot make
That we would even God accuse
Or thwart the Reaper's wretched way
By trading them their earthly bed
That they might live, and we be dead

But premature they've gone ahead
The world- a gray and lesser place
We miss them, and it grieves us so
That we bask now not in their glow
Still, every fiber of our being
Will cling to every memory
We had of them while they were here
With deepest love, and deepest tear