I Will Lay The Fair Casket

I will lay the fair casket that held you
Away beneath the sweet grassy sod

Leslie George

From a poem called 'With the Angels', by Agnes Neale, published in a book called Shadows and Sunbeams.
It is the last verse:
I will lay the fair casket that held you
Away ’neath the sweet grassy sod —
My darling is gone with the angels,
My baby is gone back to God.

There are two seperate parts of this beautiful poem, I have copied the second section below:
My darling! my beautiful darling!
Oh! why are you lying so still?
So still that my heart stops its beating;
My fingers are stiffened and chill.

You are lovely as moonlight, my darling,
But your cheek as a snowdrop is white;
Your lips are all faded and hueless —
You are silent, my darling, to-night.

My baby! my beautiful baby!
Have you gone to the angels from me?
I thought you would stay with me always,
My darling and treasure to be.

They only had lent you, my darling,
And now they have borne you away,
Away on their broad shining pinions,
To the beautiful realms of the day.

My darling! my beautiful darling!
Lie still, like a white rose at rest;
I shall pillow your bright golden ringlets
No more on my warm-loving breast.

If the angels had given you, darling,
They could not have called you again;
And so I take hope in my sorrow,
And comfort is blended with pain.

I will lay the fair casket that held you
Away ’neath the sweet grassy sod —
My darling is gone with the angels,
My baby is gone back to God.

This poem is beautiful and heart breaking. It truely bought me to tears.