University of Virginia Library

LINES TO A LADY UPON HER THIRD BIRTHDAY

Dear Cousin: to be three years old,
Is to have found the Age of Gold:
That Age foregone! that Age foretold!
What wondrous names, then, wait thy choice,
High sounding for thine helpless voice!
I choose instead: and hail in thee
A queen of lilied Arcady,
Or lady of Hesperides:
Or, if Utopia lie near these,
Utopian thou, by right divine,
On whom all stars of favour shine.
Vainly the cold Lycean sage
Withheld his praise from childhood's age;
Denied thine happiness to thee;
Nor as a little child would be!
Man to the world he could present,
Magnanimous, magnificent:
Children, he knew not: for of thee
Dreamed not his calm philosophy;
Or Pythias was no Dorothy!
Thou hast good right to laugh in scorn
At us, of simple dreams forlorn:
At us, whose disenchaunted eyes
Imagination dare despise.
Thou hast that freshness, early born,
Which roses have; or billowy corn,
Waving, and washed in dews of morn:
And yet, no flower of woodlands wild,
But overwhelming London's child!
About thy sleep are heard the feet
And turmoil of the sounding street:
Thou hearest not! The land of dreams
More closely lies, and clearlier gleams.
Thou watchest, with thy grave eyes gray,
Our world, with looks of far away:
Eyes, that consent to look on things
Unlike their own imaginings;
And, looking, weave round all, they see,
Charms of their own sweet sorcery.
Thus very London thou dost change
To wonderland, all fair and strange:
The ugliness and uproar seem
To soften, at a child's pure dream:
And each poor dusty garden yields
The fresh delight of cowslip fields.
What is the secret, and the spell?
Thou knowest: for thou hast it well.
Wilt thou not pity us, and break
Thy silent dreaming, for our sake?
Wilt thou not teach us, how to make
Worlds of delight from things of nought,
Or fetched from faery land, and wrought
With flowers and lovely imageries?
Pity us! for such wisdom dies:
Pity thyself! youth flies, youth flies.
Thou comest to the desert plain,
Where no dreams follow in thy train:
They leave thee at the pleasaunce close;
Lonely the haggard pathway goes.
Thou wilt look back, and see them, deep
In the fair glades, where thou didst keep
Thy summer court, thy summer sleep:
But thou wilt never see them more,
Till death the golden dreams restore.
Now, ere the hard, dull hours begin
Their sad, destroying work within
Thy childhood's delicate memory,
Wilt thou not tell us, Dorothy?
Nay! thou art in conspiracy
With all those faeries, children styled,
To keep the secret of the child.
Ah! to be only three years old!
That is indeed an Age of Gold:
And, care not for mine idle fears!
Thou need'st not lose it: the far years,
Touching with love and gentle tears
The treasures of thy memory,
May mould them into poetry.
Then, of those deep eyes, gray and grave,
The world will be a willing slave:
Then, all the dreams of dear dreamland
Wait with their music at thine hand,
And beauty come at thy command.
But now, what counts the will of time?
Enough, thou livest! And this rhyme,
Unworthy of the Golden Age,
Yet hails thee, in that heritage,
Happy and fair: then, come what may,
Thou hast the firstfruits of the day.
Fair fall each morn to thee! And I,
Despite all dark fates, Dorothy!
Will prove me thine affectionate
Cousin, and loyal Laureate.