The adopted daughter :: :: University of Virginia Library

How fair the lovely cherub, of bright angelic form,
Its eyes are like two evening stars that twinkle till the morn;
Its face is radiant with the smiles that dimple in the cheek,
And its heart is full of sweetest love, tho'its lip no word can speak.
It seems from out of Paradise, so free from guile and sin,
No thought of wrong has ever lain upon the heart within;
How like an angel does it seem, so bright and heavenly fair,
What joy to clasp it to the heart to nestle sweetly there.
It looks around on forms of earth, pleased with its happy home,
For gentle voices greet the ear in tones that love will come,
With every little want supplied, lulled to its gentlest rest
It sleeps within its downy couch, like bird in downy nest.
Its waking is like opening flowers with every color bright,
Its rounded arms are upward raised, as if for upward flght;

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It is Purity embodied, to which the mother sings,
An Angel for a season—a cherub without wings.
They come to teach us of that home beyond this earthly sky,
Where kindred forms with plumage bright are waving now on high,
Where sweetest language, kindest tones of love in music rings,
And to win us to that higher world among celestial things.
Oh can it be, that man has been what now thou fondly art,
When we look on the time mar'd features, or the cold and callous heart;
Earth's angels come to teach us what we at last may be,
And to show mankind the contrast of Sin and Purity.
But that same sweet form, so bright and fair, seeming of heavenly birth,
How dark its spirit may become, stained with the sins of earth;
Remember, Oh young mother, the “Angel Child” so fair,
And then in after years “the Fiend with visage of despair!”
Let those pictures be a talisman—that form of beauty bright
With sunny curls of finest gold, and eyes of azure light;
And its dark and bitter counterpart, the Painter sadly found,
Which proves to be, the “Angel Child” in chains and dungeon bound!