Poems by Hartley Coleridge With a Memoir of his Life by his Brother. In Two Volumes |
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TO THE SAME, ON HER FIRST BIRTHDAY. |
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 | Poems by Hartley Coleridge |  |
134
TO THE SAME, ON HER FIRST BIRTHDAY.
'Tis right the joyous epoch of thy birthShould be a sunshine holyday on earth;
All Nature keeps it: now the boisterous North
Holds his chill breath; the birds are peeping forth,
Sweet little things, but yet not half so sweet
As thou, sweet flow'ret of a year complete!
I would, my babe, that prayer of force divine,
Or dedicated task, or vow of mine
To be performed, or suffered, as of old
Sad saints endured, or errant champion bold
Achieved on Syrian plains or Alpine passes cold—
That any work more meet for solemn time,
More grave and arduous than the easy rhyme
Which now, my love, 'tis well enough I can
Make faster far than many a wiser man—
Could gain for thee the moment of a bliss,
Were it no longer than a raptured kiss,
135
That soon is past, but comes too soon again.
But vain the vow—the very wish is vain.
The caverned saint's long life of martyrdom,
The knees that leave their dints on convent stone,
The breath that is but one perpetual groan,
Are useless all one pause of peace to win:
No pain of man can expiate a sin.
But wherefore dream of what I fain would do,
Or prate of pain beneath a sky so blue?
'Tis Spring with Nature—tender Spring with thee,
But the sere Autumn follows hard on me.
It may be, pretty babe, ere thou canst know
The man that loves thee, and be-rhymes thee so,
I may be gone, and never see thee more;
But yet I see thee on the farther shore,
Clad in thine infant robes of innocence,
Pure even as now, baptised from all offence,
A spirit mature—yet with no more to fear
Than the sweet infant of a single year
| Poems by Hartley Coleridge | |