 | Poems |  |
TO A LADY I KNOW, AGED ONE.
O sunny curls! O eyes of blue!
The hardest natures known,
Baby, would softly speak to you,
With strangely tender tone;
What marvel, Mary, if from such
Your sweetness love would call?
We love you, baby, O how much!
Most dear of all things small!
The hardest natures known,
Baby, would softly speak to you,
With strangely tender tone;
What marvel, Mary, if from such
Your sweetness love would call?
We love you, baby, O how much!
Most dear of all things small!
Unborn, how, more than all on earth,
Your mother yearn'd to meet
Your dream'd-of face; you, from your birth,
Most sweet of all things sweet!
Even now, for your small hands' first press
Of her full happy breast,
How oft does she God's goodness bless,
And feel her heart too blest!
Your mother yearn'd to meet
Your dream'd-of face; you, from your birth,
Most sweet of all things sweet!
Even now, for your small hands' first press
Of her full happy breast,
How oft does she God's goodness bless,
And feel her heart too blest!
You came, a wonder to her eyes,
That doated on each grace,
Each charm, that still with new surprise
She show'd us in your face.
Small beauties? ah, to her not small!
How plain to her blest mind!
Though, baby dear, I doubt if all
All that she found could find.
That doated on each grace,
Each charm, that still with new surprise
She show'd us in your face.
Small beauties? ah, to her not small!
How plain to her blest mind!
Though, baby dear, I doubt if all
All that she found could find.
A year has gone, and, mother, say,
Through all that year's blest round,
In her has one sweet week or day
Not some new beauty found?
What moment has not fancied one,
Since first your eyes she met?
And, wife, I know you have not done
With finding fresh ones yet.
Through all that year's blest round,
In her has one sweet week or day
Not some new beauty found?
10
Since first your eyes she met?
And, wife, I know you have not done
With finding fresh ones yet.
Nor I; for, baby, some new charm
Each coming hour supplies,
So sweet, we think change can but harm
Your sweetness in our eyes,
Till comes a newer, and we know,
As that fresh charm we see,
In you, sweet Nature wills to show
How fair a babe can be.
Each coming hour supplies,
So sweet, we think change can but harm
Your sweetness in our eyes,
Till comes a newer, and we know,
As that fresh charm we see,
In you, sweet Nature wills to show
How fair a babe can be.
Kind God, that gave this precious gift,
More clung-to every day,
To Thee our eyes we trembling lift—
Take not Thy gift away!
Looking on her, we start in dread,
We stay our shuddering breath,
And shrink to feel the terror said
In that one dark word—death.
More clung-to every day,
To Thee our eyes we trembling lift—
Take not Thy gift away!
Looking on her, we start in dread,
We stay our shuddering breath,
And shrink to feel the terror said
In that one dark word—death.
O tender eyes! O beauty strange!
When childhood shall depart,
O that thou, babe, through every change
May'st keep that infant heart!
O gracious God! O this make sure,
That, of no grace beguiled,
The woman be in soul as pure
As now she is, a child!
When childhood shall depart,
O that thou, babe, through every change
May'st keep that infant heart!
O gracious God! O this make sure,
That, of no grace beguiled,
The woman be in soul as pure
As now she is, a child!
| Poems | |