University of Virginia Library

XLVI.

[Each morn the same sun rises on our day]

Each morn the same sun rises on our day,
Measuring with every year his usual round;

179

The merry bells that for our birthdays sound,
And those that knoll us to our homes of clay,
Speak ever with one voice; the skies obey
Spring whispering soft, and summer blossom-crowned,
And autumn flush, and winter icy-bound:
Down Life's smooth channel Ages sleep their way.
The babe that smiling in her slumber lies
Lapt in thy breast, hath been there oft before;
This day, this room, hath all been acted e'er;
And even the thought not first in me doth rise;—
Time measures but the course of human will;
'Tis we that move, while Providence is still.
 

This and the two following sonnets were written about the time of the birth of my first child.