Intense and terrible, I think, must be the loneliness / Of infants—look at all / The Teddy-bears clasped in slumber in slatted cribs / Painted pale-blue or pink. / And all the Easter Bunnies, dirty and disreputable, that deface / The white pillow and the sterile, immaculate, sunny, turning pleasantly in space. / Dainty abode of Baby—try to replace them / With new ones, come Easter again, fluffy and white, and with a different smell; / Release with gentle force from the horrified embrace, / That hugs until the stitches give and the stuffing shows, / His only link with a life of his own, the only thing he really knows ... / Try to sneak it out of sight. / If you wish to hear anger yell glorious / From air-filled lungs through a throat unthrottled / By what the neighbours will say; / If you wish to witness a human countenance contorted / And convulsed and crumpled by helpless grief and despair, / Then stand beside the slatted crib and say There, there, and take the toy away. // Pink and pale-blue look well / In a nursery. And for the most part Baby is really good: / He gurgles, he whimpers, he tries to get his toe to his mouth; he slobbers his food / Dreamily—cereals and vegetable juices—onto his bib: / He behaves as he should. // But do not for a moment believe he has forgotten Blackness; nor the deep / Easy swell; nor his thwarted / Design to remain for ever there; / Nor the crimson betrayal of his birth into a yellow glare. / The pictures painted on the inner eyelids of infants just before they sleep, / Are not in pastel.