The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

My first-born! when I heard thy faint low cry,
Home to the heart was echoing nature stirr'd
With more than man can tell by tear, or sigh,
Or Fondness image through a shaping word;
For Life is deeper than our language far,
And dimly mirrors but the half we are.

The fountains in the inward deep of soul
Seem'd broken up with preternat'ral start,
And onward gush'd with sweetest uncontrol
The new-born raptures of a parent's heart:
Each chord of feeling trembled like a tone
Which haunts the harpstring, when the hand is flown.

How shall I doat upon thy dawning smile
When conscious reason first begins to play!
And watch the beauty of each dimpling wile
Clothing thy cheek with what the lip would say,
Were but the gladness of thy spirit heard
In the lisp'd cadence of some little word.

Holy is childhood! through that lovely age
Incarnate Mercy did not shun to live,
And thereby circled life's commencing stage
With halo pure as innocence could give,—
A charm which consecrates an infant now,
When the first Sacrament bedews its brow.

Nor doubt, the infant Christ at mother's knee
The priceless volume of celestial Love
Conn'd day by day,—that parents hence might see
How lisping babes ascend to truth above;
Nurtur'd for heaven as their young spirits grow,
By wisdom strengthen'd in this world of woe.

Nor let some Cain-like reason coldly ask
How with the mind of some unspeaking child
Regenerate Love can ply its living task,
And to the heart teach lessons undefiled?—
Baptismal grace exceeds what eyes discern,
And more than Science dreams, a babe may learn.

Think how Emmanuel, when man's world He walk'd,
Stoop'd to those little ones, who round Him came;
And when of more than angels knew He talk'd,
Anthem'd with high-toned joy God's mystic name,
Because what hoary Sages oft refuse,
That for some nursling God's free-will doth choose.

So with a sacredness from heaven decreed
My first-born! by the Church environ'd round,
May the blest Spirit help thy dawning need
From hallow'd stores, which in His breast abound,
Who e'en in glory can remember still
How on sad earth He felt each infant thrill.

Lamb of the flock! within thy Saviour's fold
Calm may'st thou roam, by living pastures green
'Mid waters bright,—with footstep never bold,
Follow The Shepherd through life's destined scene;
Thou wilt not want, if He become thy guide.
With rod of love and staff of grace supplied.

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Coil'd in the secret of His purpose vast
Firstling of Hope! thine unread future lies,
But should thy doom for ripening years be cast
And thou be spared to light enamour'd eyes,
How will maternal Fondness round thee twine,
And my heart gladden when it dreams of thine!

To aid thy lip Christ's glorious name to speak,
And hear thy sweet mouth lisp its little prayer;
To watch emotions mirror'd on thy cheek
When first religion is reflected there,
While with lock'd hands of reverential love
Thou kneel'st to ask a blessing from above,—

By soft degrees to view thee conscious grow
Of God and nature, mind, and scene, and man,
Gently to chide each fault, and calm each woe
As only echoing hearts of parents can,—
Delights like these will anxious toil repay,
And sun my spirit with perpetual ray.

And should my darling add to loveliness
A frame responsive to those fine appeals,
Which earth's dumb eloquence doth aye impress
On each who nature's living poem feels,
With sacred rapture shall I watch thee try
To read God's epic, in the glorious sky!

But oh, of joys the brightest, purest, best
Will that be found,—when first thy budding mind
Words of redeeming grace and truth arrest
And glorify thy love for human kind;
Or when thy broken accents would explain
What Childhood feels for God's incarnate pain.

But these are dreams:—and voiceless omens creep
Round my chill'd Spirit, when it looks on thee,
Making the moist eye almost bend and weep
O'er the veil'd depths of hush'd futurity;
For soft dejection in thine infant-gaze,
Like dim prediction, seems to tell thy days.

God shield thee, darling!—like a dewdrop now,
In radiant freshness on the tree of Life
Trembles thy being; but with prescient brow
I darkly ponder, lest disease and strife
Crush thy soft nature, now so fair and frail,
And bid thee into death at once exhale.

Mysterious God! should this deep trial come
And thou, my first-born, find the infant's grave,
Long ere thy sire, shouldst thou be summon'd home
And heaven remand the treasure that it gave,
Oh! teach me, Lord, this awful prayer to say,—
“Blest be His name, who gives, and takes away!”