The Children of the Poor

By Victor Hugo
Prenez garde à ce petit être.

Take heed of this small child of earth;
He is great: in him is God most high.
Children before their fleshly birth
Are lights in the blue sky.

In our brief bitter world of wrong
They come; God gives us them awhile.
His speech is in their stammering tongue,
And His forgiveness in their smile.

Their sweet light rests upon our eyes:
Alas! their right to joy is plain.
If they are hungry, Paradise
Weeps, and if cold, Heaven thrills with pain.

The want that saps their sinless flower
Speaks judgment on Sin's ministers.
Man holds an angel in his power.
Ah! deep in Heaven what thunder stirs.

When God seeks out these tender things,
Whom in the shadow where we keep,
He sends them clothed about with wings,
And finds them ragged babes that weep!