TO SALLIE, ON HER EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY.
Spring, with its bright and cheerful hours,
Flies like the mist away;
But weaves around our fragrant bowers
The light of summer's ray.
And summer, with its brilliant beams,
Gives way to autumn's reign;
And every swelling garner teems
With heaps of golden grain.
So childhood, like the spring, retires,
That nobler youth may rise;
And youth to riper age aspires
And yearns for Paradise.
So life rolls on; each precious hour
Swells with the life to be,
And ripening years prepare the dower
Of immortality.
Leave the glad memories of the past,
To holier calls respond;
Upward with joyful vigor haste,
The goal is still beyond.
Passed is the limit that divides
Childhood from ripening life;
Go, see what work thy hand abides,
And dare the noble strife.
God be thy guide,—His sheltering hand
Direct and guard thy way;
So shall life's promises expand
In fair, immortal day.
October 18, 1856.
