Names Known But to God

Unmarked graves of children.

Names Known But to God

 

By Elton Camp

 

Country cemeteries are where they’re found

To me, it’s one of the saddest things around

Where the Mother and Father in death reside

And with a few other little graves to the side

 

These tiny tombs bear neither name nor date

Because so young in years they met their fate

Stones from the field serve to mark the place 

That the children’s small bodies now encase

 

But it wasn’t that the babies weren’t adored

It was just the best the parents could afford

So many small ones, all parents had to fear

Died within that terrible, dangerous first year

 

Vaccinations were not yet at all widespread

Thus, of childhood diseases many were dead

Antibiotics were not at that time on the scene

So infection easily a child’s death did mean

 

What they might have become is unknown

Had the infants lived until they were grown

This one here a great man might have been

This other’s life might have brought chagrin

 

While the parents lived, each name they knew

Years later, those who remembered grew few

A bunch of flowers carefully on each they lay

Ever on the cemetery’s annual decoration day

 

When, at last, parents and siblings were gone

Then the graves lay forgotten and all alone

Only the small rocks show that they are there

And that someone, sometime really did care

 

There is one who still to their welfare will see

He said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

The resurrection hope is a promise certain, sure

Also to such ones with names, to man, obscure