University of Virginia Library

CHILDHOOD'S MERRIMENT.

Merry children, imps of joy,
Yours is bliss that cannot cloy,
Bliss ye breathe with every breath,
Bliss your fancy gendereth,
Ever fresh and ever new,
Ever changed, yet ever true.
Merry children, imps of joy,
Days are coming to destroy!
Days of doubts and gloomy deeds,
To which this path of hours still leads
Through shadowy glooms to dark recess,
Lost to the light of happiness!
Hour doth after hour creep soft,
To melt like fleecy clouds aloft;
Like vapours vanishing away,
Before the smile of perfect day;
They thus vanish—but they leave
Traces that must make us grieve.
Fearful trace and fatal mark,
Record dim—memorial dark.
That may not thus soon depart,
Stamped into the mind and heart.
Is it not strange that they should leave,
While life's tissued tale they weave,
Such dark trace and track behind,
On the heart and on the mind.
In one soft and silken chain,
Seem they linkēd to remain;
While they gently smoothly blend,
Still the same unto the end!
So tenderly together bound,
What rude, abrupt, surprise profound,
Shall make division 'tween them strange,
Colouring with dark hues of change?
Ah! sorrow comes with them as dew,
Comes with the morning's rose-touch'd hue.
Ere yet we know 'tis sorrow—Lo!
We restless and impatient grow,
And anxious, and perturbed by fears,
Till all melts in a flow of tears.
Then we stand subdued, and know
Our dark bosom-inmate—Woe!
Hours! ye are but treacherous things,
Ye do waft us on your wings—
Passing with this patient pace,
Together wound in calm embrace.
Cankered thoughts and venomed cares,
Failing years and hoary hairs,
Wearied frame and laboured breath,
Darkness, bitterness, and Death—
Yet ye seem so softly sped,
So tenderly and gently led
On your smooth unvarying way,
Year by year, as day by day,
That we scarcely can believe
Ye such webs of wrong can weave!
Merry children, elves of joy,
Well your happy hours employ,
Seize the winged time on its way,
Not for you 'twill pause or stay!
Hours are false and treacherous things,
Wafting dark dooms on their wings;
Though so fair they gleam and smile,
They bring ten thousand ills the while!
Go! and laugh, and shout, and try
Your glad speed with the butterfly,
Forest-fawn and forest-bee,
Young comrades and play-fellows free;
Dance and sport—nor fear nor droop,
Breathe the rosy air of hope,
Dance and sport, and joyous send
Your voices' ringing tones to blend
With hymn of bird, and hum of bee,
And all of nature's melody!
Your voices, silvery, sweet are heard,
As carol of the sun's glad bird!
And, Oh! in nature there is none
Of richer, or more rapturous tone!
Merry children—imps of joy,
Now the sunny hours employ;
Hours are coming, dark and deep
While ye climb life's frowning steep,
These shall chase bright thoughts away,
Employ—improve the smiling day!
Clouds shall soon come rolling on
Where the sun had gladly shone,
Angry storms those clouds prepare,
'Stead of pleasure's rosy air!
Merry children—imps of joy—
Days are coming to destroy
Hope's bright bloom and joy's clear ray!
Oh! be merry while ye may!
O'er the smooth sweet greensward dart,
With bounding limb and fearless heart,
Sport and smile—and shout and sing—
Life's a dark and changeful thing,
While upon its sunny side,
Take the joys it deigns provide;
Soon enough its shadows lower
O'er fallen fruit and faded flower,—
Soon enough its storms burst dread,
O'er ruined bowers and fair leaves shed!
Soon must dawn the darker day,—
Oh! be happy while ye may!